


Afterlight

by Satelesque



Series: Before the Curtains Rise [1]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, And poor choices thereof, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Causality Loops, Character Study, Demon Deals, Gen, Growing Up, Human Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Original Character Death(s), Role Models, Serial Killers, Timeline Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:01:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 34
Words: 49,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22444495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satelesque/pseuds/Satelesque
Summary: When Alastor was four, the old, off-brand afterlight in his bathroom finally burnt out.  His father replaced it with the real deal.  A genuine Afterlight® bulb—guaranteed high-fidelity views into the afterlife, or your money back.  But when Alastor looked into the mirror, there were no clouds or sunshine or winged angels, only a red-eyed demon who turned to him and smiled.Some stories change when you grow up with yourself as your guiding light.  Others only become more inevitable.
Series: Before the Curtains Rise [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1986223
Comments: 226
Kudos: 245





	1. Afterlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now with beautiful [cover art](https://karinacapybara.tumblr.com/post/615011171501735936/im-back-with-another-fanfic-cover-this-time) by karinacapybara! Thank you so much!

When Alastor was four, the old, off-brand afterlight in his bathroom finally burnt out. His father replaced it with the real deal. A genuine Afterlight® bulb. Guaranteed high fidelity views into the afterlife, or your money back.

He never regretted the investment. Like father like son, Alastor’s reaction was exactly the same as his. The first time he’d seen it—Heaven in all its splendor—his eyes had flown open in awe as a grin spread across his face. Relief then joy then relief again, but deeper the second time. More permanent. Every fiber of his being sighed in assurance that he was on the right path.

The chance to give that to his son was a blessing. Never mind the prudes who said it was dangerous, that seeing Hell at such a delicate age would corrupt a child’s heart. Maybe  _ their _ children, but he knew his boy. His little angel. There was nowhere Alastor could possibly end up but Heaven. Nothing else he’d possibly see.

But when Alastor looked into the mirror, there were no clouds or sunshine or winged angels. Only a red-eyed demon who turned to him and smiled.

* * *

Ten was a compromise. Most families had afterlights at home, but ten was set as the age when they could be used officially.

Any younger and children wouldn’t understand. There was no controlling what they saw in their afterlives, besides the obvious of whether it was Heaven or Hell. The Heaven-bound had nothing to fear, but views into Hell could be violent, sexual, or just plain disturbing. Without proper guidance, the sight could send young, impressionable minds spiraling deeper into sin like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It was for the hellions’ own good, or so everyone said. They all wanted nothing more than to save those poor children from themselves. It was a tragedy that such young souls were already close to Hell, and they would do anything to correct that wrong.

Behind closed doors they changed their tune. Never mind the sinners’ souls, what about their own sweet little angels’? It’d be too great a risk to let hellions go undiscovered and unsupervised, like bad apples just waiting to spoil the bunch. Better they be damned than left to run free. What if they stabbed someone or dealt drugs on the playground? What if they started talking about sex?

And of course it was always the other children. Their own were clearly Heaven-bound, products of good heritage and proper parenting. The tests even proved it!

Never mind that by the age of ten everyone knew, no matter what you saw when they took you in, you drew glowing people with halos and wings.

The test was administered in the school’s office. Alastor sat at a desk with paper and crayons, happily kicking his feet as he watched his reflection in the full-length mirror. Then the lights went out, the afterlight came on, his reflection vanished, and his demon looked at him and raised a brow. Alastor had caught him in the middle of a meal again, but his demon just grinned and raised a bloodied finger to his lips.

Alastor smiled back and reached for the blue.

* * *

Only Alastor’s mother knew the truth, but that was fine. She was already his secret. It was alright that she knew another. Better her than anyone else.

And someone else would’ve surely found out if not for her.

“Ma? How come you’re not looking back?” he’d asked her, and her hands fell still on her sketchpad.

“What do you mean?” she said.

Alastor pointed to the sketch. “Father took me to a gallery last month, and all the afterlight drawings were looking away.”

Her brows furrowed in confusion. “They look away because they can’t see us, dear,” she said, only to see her confusion mirrored. The two stared at each other in silence until her expression went carefully calm. “Your pa’s been treating you good Al, right?”

“Mm-hm!” Alastor eagerly nodded his head.

“And you’re happy?”

He nodded again.

“And in the afterlight? Are you happy there?”

“All the time! I’m always smiling!”

Then she let out a deep sigh. “There’s people out there who say the Bible’s wrong. That Hell ain’t such a bad place. I don’t know. I’ve seen the pictures and some of ‘em . . .”

She trailed off, her eyes wandering to the ceiling then down to Alastor’s face, where a horrified realization was dawning. Her eyes went wide, her sketchpad flew from her lap, and her arms wrapped tight around her son.

“No, no, babe! It’s okay! Don’t worry! You can tell me anything. You’ll always be my angel, babe, no matter where you are.” She didn’t move until Alastor relaxed and hugged her back, and then she didn’t let go until she passed on a warning. “In Heaven there’s no worldly ties. God’s power is in everything, and there’s no power but God’s. That’s why they can’t see us. But in the other place, well there’s all kinds of stories. All kinds of powers . . . You just make sure no matter where you end up, you’re happy and you’re safe, alright hon?”

“Alright,” he mumbled into her shoulder.

For a second she hugged him tight enough to hurt, then she let go, climbed off the couch, and shot him a grin. “Now how’s about we get dinner started?”

That evening they made his favorite jambalaya, and they never spoke of afterlight again.

* * *

The afterlight flicked on, and Alastor’s demon looked up from his cup of coffee and shot Alastor the usual toothy grin.

Perfect. It was time to be sure. Alastor carefully kept eye contact as he raised one hand for a slow, deliberate wave.

And his demon’s smile stretched wide, wider than any human could manage, as if he’d been waiting all this time for Alastor to finally reach out to him. He turned in his chair, gave Alastor a short wave, then held a hand out in front of him.

The meaning was clear, even if Alastor did feel silly reaching out to grab nothing but air. His hand bobbed up and down once, twice, and his demon’s eyes squeezed shut in a soundless laugh. When they opened his smile was smaller, but full of pride and promises.

_ Oh, we are going to have so much fun together, _ it said.


	2. Sign

There was a girl at school, Gloria, who couldn’t hear a thing. Her time in class was spent reading books and carefully copying down anything the teacher wrote on the chalkboard. Every day she was dropped off to school by her mother. Every day they’d signal at each other with sharp, precise hand gestures.

Sign language. It took embarrassingly long for Al to make the connection.

He’d tried communicating with his demon before. His first fruitless attempt was with a notebook. “What is your name?” he wrote, then held it up to the mirror.

His demon just laughed, mimed holding up a book of his own, and shrugged. So he could see Al, but not anything around him. Annoying, but a minor setback. It was already more than most people had.

In the end he’d resorted to spelling out the question in the air. “Alastor,” his demon spelled back with an amused roll of his eyes.

Of course they’d share the same name, though Al noted with some chagrin that his demon wore it better. He’d been going by Al for a year now anyway. It just made sense to leave his full name with his demon for now, until they became the same person. Alastor deserved it. He was older and in some odd way more fully realized.

But the notebook would work on Gloria.

“Hi,” he wrote. “My name is Al. I want to learn sign language. Let’s be friends.”

She looked at him with suspicion, confusion, more suspicion, and finally understanding. Her hands reached out for his notebook and pencil.

* * *

Al wasn’t disliked. Far from it. At school he was bright, cheerful, and just rebellious enough to be endearing. At home he played the dutiful son. None of it changed the way rumors swarmed around him like wasps, warding off any potential friends.

Hellion, whoreson, colored. He didn’t know which was worst.

The first was easiest to brush off. All it took was a sarcastic, “Takes one to know one.” No one took the word seriously when thrown around by children on the playground.

Whoreson was enraging because of just how wrong it was. He knew his mother, he’d seen whores, and they couldn’t be further apart if they tried. She loved father, but it would never work. She’d given up so much for her son to have a good life, and nobody could ever know because she wasn’t white.

They didn’t know. Colored was pure speculation, passed down from parents who wondered if there wasn’t another reason Al’s father was so tight lipped. They had no proof. Al’s skin was as fair as any of theirs, his mother’s a carefully guarded secret. If they ever learned the truth though, if those rumors ever took root, they would bring Al’s life tumbling down around him.

Whoreson was vile. Colored was dangerous. Al knew that, but it was hellion that always set panic sparking across his skin and his hair standing on end.

He’d seen the treatment for Hell-bound children. An endless cycle of church, confession, community service, and being lectured at by stuffy old men. He’d be constantly watched, unable to pursue his more unconventional pastimes.

They’d take away his afterlight. It was the one thing he could never allow.

Al learned to be very careful. He was perfectly fair and perfectly polite when he tricked his classmates out of their allowance. As long as people were laughing at the show, they’d ignore the puppet master.

He learned to carry spare handkerchiefs and keep the blood of small animals from staining his clothes.

* * *

Quite understandably Gloria was even less social than Al. Maybe it was out of sympathy, maybe sheer loneliness, but she never questioned Al’s motives for asking to be friends.

The next day she got permission to visit the library after school and helped him check out a guide to learning sign language. Then came the weekend, and by next Monday Al had memorized the alphabet, a few simple greetings, and most importantly, “What is the sign for—?”

“What’s the sign for school?” Alastor asked aloud as he signed the question and pointed at the schoolhouse. Class was over, the other students were gone, but the two stayed behind and sat on a bench in front of the main building.

Gloria signed her reply, then repeated it slowly for Al to copy. When Al’s right hand was off, she shook her head and mimicked what he was doing wrong. She’d learned quickly that reaching out to correct him would only get her a glare and her hand slapped away.

She waited until Al got it down, then asked,“Why do you speak when you sign?” When Al didn’t understand, she sighed, put on a confused look, and mimed words coming from her mouth.

“Oh!” Al said, then shrugged. “I just like talking.” He didn’t yet know the word for like, so he copied the sign from her question and gave her a wide smile.

Gloria couldn’t help but smile back. Al may have been an odd one, but it’d be nice to have a friend.

* * *

Al had hoped to be fluent in sign before he showed it off to his demon, but it wasn’t to be. By Friday it had finally sunk in that it’d be months, years maybe, until he was ready. He couldn’t last that long. There was no way. It hadn’t been a week, and the anticipation was already tearing him apart.

By sundown he could take it no longer. He practiced the phrase a few times in the mirror, then flipped on the afterlight.

“I’m learning to sign,” he told his demon.

Alastor gestured toward his head, and it was good that Al had seen that smug look on his face plenty of times before. There was no way he could keep up with the rapidfire signing as Alastor spelled out the translation. “I know.”

Of course he did. Why did it always catch Al off guard that they were the same person? Sure, he was only eleven, and Alastor was who knew how old and powerful and amazing, and maybe it wasn’t all that surprising after all.

But never again. Al had never been one for self doubt. One day he would be Alastor, and the proof was in the way his demon mouthed the words he signed, just the same as Al did. Al was only eleven now, and he barely knew his alphabet, but someday his hands would move with all the vivid grace of his demon’s. Someday he’d do everything with that same grace.


	3. Learning

Learning sign language proved to be the perfect excuse for Al to spend hours shut in the bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror. In a sense, it wasn’t even a lie. He was practicing sign, just not with his reflection.

Rarely could Alastor spare so much time on idle chatter, but that was alright. He never seemed bothered by Al looking on as he went about his duties as an overlord of Hell.

Overlord. The word rolled smoothly from Al’s tongue. Wouldn’t Mother be proud?

It was far from all logistics and paperwork though. There were meetings dangerous enough that Al felt the tension without hearing a single word. It was only when they ended that he’d realize his muscles were stiff, his eyes dry from not blinking, and his skin covered in cold sweat. Alastor had laughed at him the first time, then raised a hand. Al copied him and only then noticed that both were softly shaking.

For a moment he didn’t know what to do. Never before had his demon seemed so vulnerable, so—for lack of a better word—human. Then Alastor snapped his fingers, and the spell was broken. All his usual flair was back as he went about straightening the room. Scattered papers were caught by shadowy hands, the broken remains of a chair immolated themselves, and the signed contract curled into a tight scroll and vanished in a puff of green fire. Alastor’s hands wove through the air like a conductor’s, not a tremble in sight.

The lesson was clear. Nerves were unavoidable but beneath his concern. The best way to quell them would be through skill and sheer, unflappable showmanship.

* * *

As the seasons changed, Al and Gloria were forced to skip more and more of their after-school meetings due to the weather. Eventually Gloria got fed up.

“I got permission to bring a friend home,” she signed. “Come on, let’s go!”

It was the first time Al had been in a girl’s room, but he still didn’t know what all the fuss was about. The walls were pink instead of blue, dirty dresses were piled on her chair instead of trousers, and a doll sat on her bed. That was it.

Far more interesting were the stacks of books and magazines and penny papers lying across every surface.

“I read a lot,” she shrugged. “What else am I going to do? Mom says to help with the housework so I can be a good wife, but I can’t do chores all the time. Someday I’ll write my own story that gets in the papers. I’m going to be an author. What about you?”

“Radio host,” Al said without any hesitation.

Her brow furrowed in confusion. “I don’t know those signs.”

Al was halfway through telling her about radio before he saw his mistake. “It’s not a real job yet, but someday there’ll be people who send their voice across the airwaves for everyone to hear.”

Gloria’s hands stilled and fell to her lap, and Al realized that in his enthusiasm he’d messed up again. “It’ll be great, you’ll see,” he signed. “There’s people out there who can’t read, you know. When you write your stories I’ll make sure to read them on air so everyone knows how great they are.”

A faint smile spread across Gloria’s face. “Thanks, Al,” she signed.

* * *

“Father, what are intentions?”

Al’s father looked over his newspaper and across the dinner table toward Al. “Intentions are plans to do something.” He took a sip of his beer. “Why ask now?”

“Gloria’s father asked me what my intentions toward her are. I guess I—” He was interrupted by his father choking on his drink.

“That— That means something a tad different. You’re only eleven, Al. You can worry about that when you’re older.”

Al just hummed and nodded. “Okay.”

* * *

“What does ‘intentions toward someone’ mean?” Al asked, fingerspelling the unfamiliar word.

Alastor demonstrated the sign, then answered the question. “It means wanting to have sex with them.”

“Oh. Ew!”

Alastor’s look of distaste was replaced by amusement. “Indeed.”

The two were silent for a while. Al raised his hands to start a question, hesitated, then signed the words anyway. “Why do people have sex?”

Alastor raised a brow. “Because it feels good.”

“Huh.” Al considered it, then paused. Sex was common enough in Hell that he’d learned what it was a while ago, but he’d never seen it close up. Never interrupted Alastor in the middle of it, no matter what odd time of day he checked his afterlight. “Alastor? How come you don’t have sex?”

“I don’t want to,” was his demon’s simple answer.

“But why not? You said it feels good.”

“Do you want to?”

“Well . . . no,” Al was forced to admit, and Alastor smiled like that was all that needed to be said.

* * *

Even more thrilling than Alastor’s meetings with his fellow overlords were the fights. Not the one-sided affairs of Alastor teaching some upstart demon a lesson, but the heart-pounding, earth-shattering ones that Al couldn’t hope to keep up with.

They were a clash of powers beyond his understanding, of senses beyond human and far beyond what he could see through the afterlight. He’d tried to keep up at first, but it was too much, too fast. The most he could do was keep his eyes on Alastor and absorb the way he fought.

It was artwork. Comedy and tragedy rolled into one spectacular performance. He’d let his opponents take the lead, let them think they’d won, sometimes let them go so far as to get their hands around his throat before he pulled the rug out from under them.

The first few times, Al was just as fooled as the rest. He’d watched in horror as a hellbeast bore down on Alastor, only for it to be seized and ripped to shreds by black tendrils. He’d seen Alastor engulfed in flames only to step out and brush soot from his sleeves. A few more deliberately close calls later, Al finally caught on. He learned to ignore his panic and wait for the turnaround he knew was coming. He learned that the best place to hide his worry was behind a wide grin and the knowledge of certain victory.


	4. Symbols

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for self-harm, not depression related.

“Something wrong Al?”

“I’ve seen this before.”

His mother got up and joined him in the entryway, where a drawing of hers hung over a small table set with candles. “That’s Saint Peter. You’ve seen his icon at mass.”

“No, not him. That.” Al pointed over Saint Peter’s shoulder, where an ornate cross embellished with curls and stars was drawn.

“That’s . . . Al, where did you see that?”

“I don’t know. It just looks familiar.”

The look on her face was unreadable. “That’s the veve of Papa Legba.” He wasn’t sure if any part of that was supposed to mean something to him. “Al, hon, you didn’t see it in a dream, did you?”

Al was almost certain he hadn’t. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Oh my sweet little angel,” she swept him up in a tight hug. “I always knew you were something special. How 'bout this? Legba’s feast is next month. Come along, and you’ll understand everything.”

* * *

Al didn’t have to wait a month to understand. The very next day his demon summoned a handful of fire to light a room. From the fire came sparks, and in the sparks were circumscribed crosses.

“That’s— That’s—” Al had to take a deep, calming breath before he could sign properly. “That’s where I saw it!”

“The veve?” Alastor mouthed the word and made a sign somewhere between “symbol” and “magic,” and Al nodded.

“How’d you know?”

Alastor chuckled. “Oh, I always know what you’re going to do, Al. I’ve done it myself, remember?”

There was something about those words that never sat right. Every time Al heard them they lingered like an itch under his skin, but it’d be years before he realized why. That night he was too busy asking questions. There was so much to learn. New ideas, new words, and his first hint to the powers he would one day wield.

* * *

Al didn’t spend every afternoon at Gloria’s. He still had his hobbies and the piano lessons he’d begged father for, but for at least a couple days a week he could be found in her room. Her father, embarrassed after asking a confused eleven year old for his intentions, allowed it with barely a grumble.

And Gloria, thrilled to have a friend after so long, wanted nothing more than to make up for lost time. Every day she’d have something new to check off her list of missed experiences. Al put up with most of them just long enough for her to realize how ridiculous they were.

Today’s game was house.

“Why am I pretending to cook?” he signed, dropping the butter knife they’d borrowed from the kitchen. “I can’t talk to you, and I’d rather cook real food.”

She sighed and set down the plates she’d been pretending to wash. “Yeah, this is— Wait, you can cook?”

“Yeah, Mother taught—” His hands froze but it was too late. Idiot, idiot,  _ idiot.  _ He’d gotten used to signing freely to his demon, to watching his mouth but not his hands. “You didn’t see anything.”

She was signing something, but he was looking her straight in her eye, waiting for her to nod.

“You didn’t see  _ anything.” _

She grabbed his hands, and his every instinct screamed in fury, but it was only for a moment. Only for a second to make him pay attention. She let go before he could wrench his hands away.

“Al, I’m happy for you. I didn’t think you knew your mom. And don’t worry, we’re friends. Your secret’s safe with me. My lips are sealed.”

She raised an ironic finger to her mouth, and Al felt a sudden surge of relief in having picked the deaf, mute girl to be his friend. It wasn’t a guarantee she wouldn’t accidentally let it slip—he’d just learned that firsthand after all—but it was a higher wall than most he could hope for.

* * *

After another nondescript day and another peaceful evening at Gloria’s house, Al skipped into the bathroom, flicked on the afterlight, and froze. His demon looked his way, and in the split second of distraction his arm was severed at the shoulder. Blood scattered, a snarl curled into Alastor’s smile, and for the first time Al could see everything. Alastor’s eyes and horns and the way space flickered around him. Every twitch of his fingers, every shadow, every one of the enemy’s limbs as they went flying in retaliation.

Then it was over and the mirror faded to black as Alastor warped away. When it cleared, Alastor was in a familiar lounge, and Al was still frozen. His eyes stared wide and unblinking at the stump of Alastor’s arm. Sickness pooled in his stomach.

“Oh, relax. It’ll grow back.”

It took a moment to process the one-armed signs. When he did Al let out a long sigh and pressed a hand to his chest. Then he looked down at it in wonder. How was it that now of all times was the first he’d truly seen himself in Alastor? Images had rushed through his head of trying to live in Hell with only one arm. Of all the things he’d be unable to do.

His knees were weak with relief, but Alastor was the injured one, and even he managed to spin on his heel and drop into an armchair with all his usual panache. Al refused to disappoint him by sinking to the ground.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, and Alastor rolled his eyes.

“Obviously.”

Obviously, huh. Al reached into his pocket, and Alastor was shaking his head even though he couldn’t see the knife.

“Really now? I know you’re not sorry enough for it to be an apology, and  _ you _ know I don’t want revenge.”

Of course not. Trying to get revenge on himself would be up there among the stupidest ideas ever concieved. That didn’t stop Al from unwinding the cloth around the blade and setting it on the counter before he signed his response. “It’s not a punishment. You’re me, so I know you like seeing people hurt even if they’re you. I know because today you were . . .” His hands fumbled as he searched for the right word. “Today you were  _ beautiful. _ It’s my fault you’re not happy now, so I’m going to make you be.”

“Well I’m not going to stop you,” Alastor signed, then raised a brow and leaned back to enjoy the show.

Al rolled up his sleeve, pressed the blade against his arm where Alastor’s had been severed, then paused. A quick cut would hurt less, he knew, but his hand wouldn’t obey. When he forced it to move it was agonizingly slow, dragging millimeter by millimeter across his skin, making his teeth grit and tears prick at the corners of his eyes.

After a couple inches Al pulled the knife away, and the breath he’d been holding rushed out of him like a flood. A few frantic gasps later, he looked up to see exactly what he’d been hoping for. It was the same darkly satisfied look Alastor always got at seeing a demon in pain. The same thrill, the same bloodlust. Al knew it well.

“Smile, kid,” Alastor signed. “A bit of pain’s not enough to get you down, now is it?”

No. No it wasn’t. When Al’s lips curled up it may have been only half smile and half grimace, but it was a start.


	5. Rituals

Al’s father had never been one for organized religion, not even after the invention of afterlight. Plenty had taken it as proof that Christianity was the one true faith, but others took it to mean the opposite. The afterlife lost some of its mystique once it could be observed. Religion wasn’t just a matter of belief, it was a matter of analysis.

“All we know, son, is that there’s a hell for sinners and a heaven for good, righteous people. Christians aren’t the only ones who believe that. Muslims do. Some Jews too. The Greeks believed in Asphodel and Elysium, the Norse in Hel and Valhalla. Even Orientals have their own notions of Heaven and Hell.”

Then, in a rarity, he set down the book he’d been reading and turned his full attention to his son.

“It’s not going to church that’ll get you to Heaven, son. Church is for reminders. It’s for the ones who can’t read the bible and need to be taught. It’s for the weak-hearted who need help to be good. That goodness will pave your way to Heaven. Just remember to always be mindful, and the joy you see in your afterlight, you’ll have for all eternity.”

Al’s father was a good man, kind and thoughtful if somewhat distant. Every year on Easter Sunday he’d take his son to church. Their annual reminder as he put it. He was a man destined for Heaven, and he was so boring Al could cry.

* * *

Al had to admit, Legba’s feast was much more interesting than mass. There was music and dancing and drums and people calling for his mother to join them, but she stayed with Al on the sidelines and whispered in his ear.

“See, the one your pa’s ancestors called Peter and mine called Legba, they’re the same by different names. Where they live, Heaven, it’s cut off from sin and far from our world. That’s why God has us call the loa down to be his messengers. And sometimes they visit on their own, in dreams or visions or—“

Al gasped as one of the dancers fell to the ground. Every time he tried to stand, a new spasm pulled his arms out from under him.

“Shh, shh, just watch,” Al’s mother said, running a calming hand down his back.

It took a few tries, but finally the man stood. He looked around and said something in French, and the crowd let out a cheer and burst into motion. Someone brought him a cane, someone else a pipe, and others offerings of white rum. People were talking, but Al understood none of it and turned to his mother.

“He’s being ridden by Legba now,” she whispered. “After we serve him, we pray for help or advice. While he’s in our world we can hear his answers. Here, take this and come with me.”

She offered Al something small and wrapped, but he pushed it back into her hands. “It’s fine,” he said. “I don’t want to ask anything.”

“Come on, dear, don’t be shy. If you talk to him, maybe . . .” She trailed off, but the meaning was clear. Maybe his afterlight would change. Maybe he could be turned back to the path of Heaven.

Al hunched his shoulders and put on his best nervous look. “It’s just . . . It’s so different. Ma, can I do it next time? Please?”

It was “next time” that did the trick. Al watched her visibly relax before pulling him close. “Of course, sweetheart. We’ll just watch for today.” And so they did.

The feast was certainly more fun than a sermon, but there was something off about it. Not just that the same symbol a demon used had summoned a saint. Symbols had no power of their own, Alastor had told him. They only focused it, but whose power was at work here? Papa Legba’s? Saint Peter’s? If all they needed to manifest was a symbol, then why all the song and dance? He’d ask Alastor later, Al decided. For now he would simply observe.

Father had said that rituals didn’t matter, that they were only reminders. If so, then maybe these people were onto something. Everyone was moving and smiling and laughing. If he cared at all for Heaven, Al thought, it’d be far from the worst way to get there. Next time he might join in. Not to appease Mother, but for the pure fun of it.

* * *

“It’s life,” Alastor signed. “To bridge the way to the world of death, you need to use life. That’s why they dance.”

“Then the man, was he really—?”

Alastor shrugged. “Acting? In a trance? Possessed by Saint Peter? Who knows? Heaven’s not my area of expertise, kid. Maybe a song and a cornmeal veve really can call a loa. It’s not too far from how a demon’s summoned.”

Al went from nodding along to wide-eyed astonishment. “You can summon demons?”

“I’m in Hell, kid,” Alastor laughed. “Of course I can summon demons. What’s more interesting is you can too. It’ll take more than drawing a pentagram and chanting in Latin, but there’s a reason that’s the first thing you think of.”

He wasn’t exactly right. The first thing Al thought of was the next he blurted out. “Can I summon you?”

“I’ll give you two guesses to why that won’t work.”

Why it—? Oh. “Because I’m not dead yet.”

Alastor gave him a slow clap before signing back. “Got it in one.”

“But you’ll still teach me, right?”

“I will,” Alastor signed, “but not yet. There’s an important something you still haven’t noticed.”

* * *

It was when Al was in eighth grade that Gloria finally asked him, “Al, do you ever see anyone you know in the afterlight?”

It was an odd question, but not the first she’d asked. “Is this another story idea?”

She shook her head. “I read in an article that scientists are trying to predict when you’ll die from who you see in your afterlight. It just made me realize . . . never mind.”

“Realize what?”

She looked at Al, then looked down at her hands. “No, it’s not important. But it’s creepy, don’t you think? Neat, but mostly creepy.”

“What? Knowing when you’ll die?”

“Yes! Well, no, because you don’t  _ really _ know. Afterlights change all the time. What if you just stay home that day? Or what if you already decided you’d stay home on they day they say you’ll die, and that’s how you end up dying?” Her signs were running together by the end, a sure sign that she was getting agitated. Al still didn’t see the point.

“Can’t you just see if your afterlight changes?”

“Well, yeah, but unless it  _ really _ changes, it’s just different parts of the same Heaven and Hell, right? You won’t know if it’s a different future unless the scientists test you again, and then you won’t know if the second test changes it unless you test  _ again _ and . . .”

Al was still looking at her hands, but his eyes were staring into distant space.

He’d know. Al would know. He didn’t have to jump through all the hoops of getting tested. He could just ask.  _ Alastor, when am I going to die? Alastor, why didn’t you warn me not to flip off the swing and break my arm last year? Alastor, why didn’t you teach me sign language from the start? _ Because the future would change.


	6. Horror

Al was thirteen when he finally learned the truth.

“Alastor.” Al signed the name with the sharp precision of a demand. Alastor still smirked and tilted his head, but he did give Al his full attention. “You taught me about gris-gris and veves. You showed me new signs. Why didn’t you teach me sign in the first place? What’s the difference?”

Alastor’s grin turned sharp like he’d known this was coming, but of course he had. “How much do you remember from before you learned to sign?” he asked.

Al considered it. Most of the memories were a blur of admiring Alastor in the mirror, but a few stood out with clarity. His afterlight exam. The awful self-inflicted haircut that had Alastor laughing for a full minute. The first time Alastor killed another demon.

“I don’t remember any of it, not from my end anyway.” Alastor went on casually, ignoring the way Al froze. “When first I saw you, you acted shifty for a week then told me ‘I’m learning to sign.’”

Al’s hands wouldn’t move, but he stammered out, “Then . . . when I saw you before that . . .”

Alastor was smiling, and for the first time Al wanted him to stop. A small smile could pair with sadness, a sharp one with anger, and a crooked one pride. But horror? There was no smiling at the knowledge that your existence dangled by a string. It was unnatural. Inhuman.

“Wasn’t me, kid.” Alastor signed. “What you saw was a different future, one where you decided not to learn sign. But that future’s gone now, and—”

Al fumbled at the wall until he hit the light switch. The afterlight flicked off and left him alone in the dark, where Alastor couldn’t see him pull his knees to his chest and try to not hyperventilate.

* * *

Al couldn’t tell if the next day passed quickly or dragged on forever, if his focus was razor sharp or a dull blur or both at once. Every second he was hyperaware of what he was doing, of all the choices he could be making. What was the difference? Why had learning sign changed the future but not flinging himself fifteen feet off a swing? Both had seemed perfectly reasonable at the time.

Yet despite his focus he nearly jumped from his seat when Gloria tapped him on the shoulder after class.

“Sorry Al,” she signed. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Yes!” he said and wasn’t surprised when she didn’t look convinced. He’d been practicing and still had a smile on his face, but even he knew it was forced. His eyes were wide and unblinking and probably bloodshot from lack of sleep. Al let out a sigh and tried his best to explain. “Have you ever had your afterlight change?”

Shock flashed across her face before she covered it up with sympathy. “I— Oh. Oh no, Al! Did you do something—?”

“No, not like that! Not Heaven to Hell.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “I mean like you were talking about yesterday. A choice that makes a different future. I—” He forced out a nervous laugh. “I guess it is pretty creepy after all. What happens to the you from the future you don’t pick? Do they just . . .” He couldn’t make the sign for vanish. His hands wouldn’t do it, and after a few seconds he threw them in the air to try and mime  _ “poof.” _

“Well, if you think about it, they’re not real, right? The article called them ‘projections,’ like the afterlight’s predicting what’ll happen. That’s why we can change it.”

Al was up and out of his seat before he knew it. “You’re wrong,” he signed as he backed away. “I have to go.”

* * *

She was wrong, she was wrong, she was  _ wrong. _

The words ran through his head as he sprinted down the streets of New Orleans. They echoed with every step until Al’s lungs burned. Only then did he stop and gasp for breath. He looked up and didn’t recognize the street, but he wasn’t lost. School was somewhere in a straight line behind him. He shook his head and walked on.

Gloria was wrong. Obviously wrong. She had to be. When he stopped recoiling from the idea and properly considered it, there was no way she could be right. Predictions couldn’t talk. They couldn’t teach or think for themselves or have personalities.

It wasn’t Gloria’s fault, and it wasn’t the scientists’. They couldn’t know. To them afterlight was just a motion picture on a mirror. A distant maybe, not worth caring about in its own right.

Al knew better. Alastor was just as much a person as he was. Exactly as much, even. Maybe more if experience counted for anything.

The smell of old water was in his nose. A few blocks further and only a short strand separated him and the Mississippi. For a while Al sat there, leaning against a post and throwing pebbles into the water.

Gloria was wrong, but that left him exactly where he’d started. Alastor was a person, and at any moment some careless choice could erase him from existence. Avoiding him had been a thoughtless instinct. He'd tried to treat him like a glass sculpture, safe as long as no one touched it, but choices didn’t work like that. Every second Al sat there and every pebble he threw could be one too many. He’d change the course of his future and come back to an Alastor who didn’t remember him.

It wasn’t long before agitation pulled Al back to his feet. There was only one way to make sure that never happened. Only one person to talk to.

* * *

“Come back in five years, kid. And after eight. We’re closed.”

Al put his foot in the door before the club’s owner could close it, rummaged through his pocket, and pulled out a quarter. “I just need to see a mirror. Just for five minutes.”

The man eyed him up and down, then took the coin and opened the door. “Fine, but I’ve got my eye on you.”

He led Al down a short hallway that opened into a wide room. Tables and soft couches were scattered around, all angled toward a raised stage. The other side of the room featured a bar. “I take it you want this on,” the man said, and the glow of afterlight completed the scene. Red light spilled from the tall mirrors lining the walls, filling the club with a dark, sensual glow.

Al ignored it and marched straight to the biggest mirror he could find, a floor to ceiling one directly beside the stage. Alastor was there, waiting for him.

It’d be strange to sign without saying the words aloud, but the owner was still watching. It’d be safer to do this at home, but Al could wait no longer. And a full-length mirror seemed more fitting for this conversation than his bathroom vanity.

Al took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and raised his hands. “Tell me what to do.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?” Al snapped and felt the sudden urge to kick himself. He looked over his shoulder. The club owner stared back with raised brows. Al turned his head back to the mirror, and Alastor was laughing, his eyes shut tight. It was an awkward ten seconds before they opened and Al could repeat himself silently. “What do you mean, ‘no?’”

A few residual chuckles left Alastor as he signed. “My dear boy, do I strike you as someone to blindly follow orders?”

Al had barely raised a hand before Alastor went on.

“Exactly. Then you agree that getting you in the habit is the last thing either of us wants?”

It was one of Al’s favorite feelings to win an argument with an unexpected, incontestable point. Being on the other end was less fun, but he’d forgive it from Alastor alone. “So now what?”

Alastor’s grin widened. “Now I’m going to tell you what you  _ can _ do, and you’re going to do it.”

“But you just—” Al started, and Alastor raised a hand to cut him off.

“Exact words, Al. You’ll have to pay more attention than that. It’s rule number one for dealing with demons.”

He had an expectant look on, so Al asked the obvious question. “And rule number two?”

“Rule number two is don’t tell anyone what you want. If they know—and I most certainly do—they’ll have you dancing on puppet strings with a smile and a bow, no orders needed.”


	7. Causality

When his five minutes were up, Al was shooed out of the club and told in no uncertain terms never to return.

“I don’t know if you’re cracked in the head or not, and I don’t know which is worse. We don’t need either kind around here. I see your face again, I’m calling the cops.” Then he slammed the door behind him.

Al couldn’t have cared less. There were other clubs in the city, and he had no reason to visit any of them. But something the man said caught Al’s eye. If anyone would know about demons, it’d be the owner of an afterlight club.

“Are there others who can talk to their demons?” Al signed into the mirror when he got home.

There was a certain mocking smile Alastor reserved for savoring other demons’ follies, and it was wide on his face now. “Oh, there’s plenty of sinners who try to send messages back. They’ll write out advice or winning horses or summoning rituals and stand around hoping their humans tune in. It never works the way they want. Causality is unkind to all but the most stable time loops.”

Alastor spelled out the unfamiliar word as if to distract him. Al set it aside and got back on topic. “But what about the opposite? People talking to demons?”

That got him a scoff. “It’s a bar full of Hell-bound. I’m sure he’s seen more than one sinner with a few too many drinks in them start blaming their demon for their sins.” Alastor rolled his eyes, and Al narrowed his.

“How long are you going to dodge the question?”

“You’re learning!” Alastor’s grin widened, right before a slight curl of his lip turned it sinister. “If there  _ are _ others, what are you going to do about it? Kill them?”

Al was getting better at matching those smiles. “I think you already know.”

* * *

The dictionary had an entry for causality. “The relation between a cause and its effect or between regularly correlated events or phenomena,” it said. The second half might as well have been Latin, but Al could understand cause and effect.

And Alastor had given one more hint. “Gloria? What’s a time loop?”

She hadn’t complained when Al asked to go to the library after school, relieved as she’d been to see him acting like himself. She didn’t question him except a quick observation before she answered.

“You’ve really gotten into this whole future knowledge thing. A time loop’s just what it sounds like. It’s when something from the future loops back and affects the past.”

“And a stable time loop?”

That one she didn’t have an answer for. “I read mysteries, Al, not fantasy. I can point you to a few serials, but I don’t really know.”

* * *

Al tore through the serials in a matter of hours, skimming through plot in search of clues. There were paltry few to be found. Stories about time travel focused on exploring the future. Stories about afterlight treated it as Gloria had, like a projection.

“I give up,” Al finally signed into his mirror. “What makes a time loop stable?”

“I’ll give you a hint,” Alastor signed back. “You’re in one now.”

It didn’t take long to connect the dots. “Then . . . stable loops don’t change the future?”

“Or the past!” Alastor finished, then launched into a lecture on metaphysics that made Al glad at least Alastor could draw diagrams. The conversation wouldn’t be anywhere close to comprehensible if they’d been forced to do it in sign alone.

The next day Al met up with Gloria and repeated everything he’d heard, diagrams and all. He wasn’t entirely sure why. Gloria didn’t need to know. She wouldn’t tell him anything Alastor hadn’t.

Oh, he had his excuses. The best way to remember something was to teach it, not that he was in any danger of forgetting. She’d think he’d resolved his obsession with causality and moved on, not that she’d risk her one friendship by pressing him on it.

It wasn’t as though he’d tell her any real secrets. How ridiculous. No, she’d simply tried her best to help, and it was fitting to reward that with answers. Besides, they’d be graduating in a couple months. It’d be something to remember him by.

* * *

Al had hoped to spend the summer after eighth grade  _ not _ working, just to make a point of still having summer breaks unlike some of his classmates.

But plans changed. The war in Europe raged on, the cashier of the store around the corner quit for a factory job, and Al was tired of having only his allowance for spending money. It had taken years, but even his usual marks had stopped taking up his bets.

The work was far from exciting, and it paid less than a factory, but it had its upsides. The store had a radio, and the owner didn’t mind Al changing the station or singing along. “You’ve got a good ear, pal,” was all he had to say on the matter. Nor did he mind when Gloria’s occasional stops by the store started growing longer. Nor when she started joining Al behind the counter, sitting on a stool and reading until his shift ended. “How could I say no to such a lovely young lass,” he said. “You’re a lucky guy, Al.”

No matter how Al insisted she wasn’t his girlfriend, the man refused to listen. Perhaps it was for the best. Al didn’t exactly mind Gloria hanging around, except when she started tapping her feet off beat to the music. But even that was easily remedied. He’d just tap his own feet or his fingers on the counter or sway along to the music. Al never did find out if Gloria matched her rhythm to his intentionally or not, but it never failed to work.

With the wages from his job Al bought three things. A flashlight, an afterlight bulb, and a small mirror.

* * *

When September came around school came back in session. High school in Al’s case, because his father insisted and he had absolutely no complaints. Finishing school in Gloria’s. Lady Annabeth’s was a boarding school out of state, one that could accommodate for her needs. She returned every few months for holidays, and the two made a point of meeting up.

“It’s all so stuffy,” Gloria complained. “When will I ever need to know the symbolic meaning of a floral arrangement? Wait, bad example. Flower symbolism makes great foreshadowing, but that’s not the point.”

Al usually let her rant for a while. It was the fastest way to get caught up and move to more interesting topics. When she came home for Easter, though, not even her usual tirade could cure her frustration.

“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you, or are you going to make me guess,” Al finally signed.

Gloria looked away and went red with embarrassment, whether at being found out or at what she said next. “It’s stupid. I knew I couldn’t do it, and I shouldn’t be upset, but I hate being the worst in my class. Al, I . . .” Her hands fluttered through the air before she forced herself to make the signs. “I can’t dance.”


	8. Dance

“Al, are you sure about this?”

The two of them were in Gloria’s bedroom, kindly kept furnished even though she was gone for most of the year. Al just raised a brow, waiting for her to realize how ridiculous the question was.

“Okay, you’re sure, but aren’t you going to turn on some music?”

“It makes no difference to you, right?”

“Well, no, but—“

“Then it’s settled!” Al said, not bothering to sign it. Instead he grabbed Gloria’s hand and pulled her in to rest the other at her side. True to her word, she did know how to waltz. She may have blushed at the sudden closeness, but it didn’t stop her from putting her hand on his shoulder and following him through a simple box step.

And true to the rest of her word, she was awful at it. She knew the steps, but she went through them with all the grace of ticking boxes on a checklist. Every move was keyed off of Al’s, and always with an odd delay. Experimentally he slowed the pace. She didn’t so much as notice. He hesitated before each step. She didn’t react.

It wasn’t long before Al pulled away. “Wow. You weren’t kidding,” he signed, putting on that smile he’d learned from Alastor that couldn’t help but charm people even as he insulted them. Gloria shot him a glare, but a halfhearted one. “It’s amazing, really,” he went on. “I know you can keep a beat, but it’s like you’re  _ trying _ not to.”

“At school they said that since I can’t follow the music, I should follow my partner.”

“They’re wrong.” Gloria looked at Al for explanation, but for a moment he just shook his head in disbelief. “You can’t dance with someone if you’re trailing behind them. Here, copy me.”

He started with a simple set of quick steps. Right foot forward, left up to match, then again, then in reverse back to the start. It wasn’t long until Gloria was copying him, matching his rhythm as she’d so often done back in the store.

“That’s perfect. If you can’t hear the music, just watch me long enough until you can feel it instead. Now then . . .” Al took her hands, holding them out to the sides, but she pulled away before the first step.

“Al, I don’t know this dance. And there is no music.”

Al just grinned and shook his head. “There’s always music, and neither do I. Don’t step on my feet, and I won’t step on yours.” Then he held out his hands, and this time it was Gloria who reached out to take them.

* * *

Through all this time Alastor was surprisingly silent. Not literally silent, even if technically Al couldn’t hear him. When he was in a mood to talk there was no stopping him, and rarely was he not in a mood to talk.

But it was never anything important, just idle commentary about his day in Hell or, more often, reminiscence about parts of his life he’d thought forgotten. Classmates and teachers and all the props of Al’s existence, but never the actors and never the plot. All he gave there was infuriatingly vague hints.

“What are you going to do? Summon demons in your dad’s living room? Hide a body in the pantry? No, no. I’ll help you skip steps, kid, but the ones you don’t skip, you take one at a time. How about you move out before you start picking causality battles, hm?”

As to what a causality battle was, Alastor refused to explain. Nor would he say anything about Gloria except that she’d be useful later. It’d be up to Al to find out how.

There was one benefit to the silence. It only took a few months of it before Al stopped hesitating at every choice. He stopped slipping off to consult his afterlight, and the worry that some minor decision would disrupt his timeline gradually faded. If causality was that unstable, Alastor would have warned him already.

And there was just one question Alastor answered without any reservations.

“Alastor, when am I going to die?”

“April fourteenth, 1933.”

* * *

Despite her complaints, Gloria was picking up her charm school’s lessons like she’d been born to them. When she came home for the summer, she stood straight-backed and elegant, signed with clear, polite gestures, and kept a demure smile on her face.

Only someone who’d known her before could see it for the show it was. Only Al saw the way she sometimes stared into the distance, eyes narrowing with uncertainty, and knew it for more than worry that she’d mislabeled her party favors.

The third time it happened, Al just put on a look of utter skepticism and waited. A minute later, she snapped back to reality and started making her usual excuses. “Oh, sorry Al, I thought I left my . . . this isn’t working, is it?”

“Not in the slightest. What is it really?"

For a while she had no reply. Her hands twisted around each other in her lap until finally she looked back up with a resolute stare. “Promise you’ll still be my friend if I tell you.”

Al almost laughed. How unreasonable. If she hadn’t been talking to someone who knew his own future there’d be no way to answer honestly. For Al alone was it easy. “I promise.”

“I’m going to Hell.”

Gloria signed it in a flurry, then turned away, not wanting to see Al’s smile replaced by disappointment. She didn’t expect a hand on her shoulder to pull her back around. Didn’t expect his grin to be even wider.

“Great! I’m going to be an overlord. Pay me a visit when you get there, alright?”

“Al, it’s not—“

“Funny?” He anticipated her next sign and matched it. “No, it’s hilarious, and I’m not even joking. So what’ll it be that brings you to my corner of the afterlife?”

Gloria let out a sigh. “That’s the thing. I don’t know. My afterlight was flickering all through elementary school. I was hoping Lady Annabeth’s would finally get it to settle, but not like this.” Her eyes slid shut, but when they opened they glimmered with newfound curiosity. “But what about you? What’s an overlord?”

She messed up the sign, but it wasn’t her fault. It was one he and Alastor had made up years ago. Al repeated it and spelled it out, all the while wondering how much to say. More information would help her be useful like Alastor had said, but too much might have her running to the police or worse.

At the very least he could tell her the basics. A few more dots to connect, and she’d have the outline of a picture.

“Overlords are the rulers of Hell, second only to the king himself. Right now they’re all natural-born demons, but I’ll be the first mortal to join the ranks.”

Her curiosity faded a bit, but not because she was satisfied. Al didn’t miss the flicker of doubt as she asked, “Al, how do you know all this?”

“Why, it’s simple. I can talk to my demon.”

And with that, all the pieces began to click.


	9. Insanity

For some time Al assumed Gloria’s fall was his fault. It was exactly what every parent was afraid of. An undiscovered hellion had corrupted a poor, innocent soul.

Then, in exchange for his secrets, she started sharing hers. Old journals she’d buried in her yard when she didn’t have the heart to burn them but couldn’t let them be found. New stories she’d written in the last year and torn from her notebooks. She’d said she preferred to read mysteries, but now Al knew she’d been hedging. Her true, abiding passion lay in horror.

Even in her earliest works, the pages dripped with blood. Plot was an afterthought, little more than an excuse to paint crime scenes in loving detail. Words and sentences and entire paragraphs had been scribbled out in a struggle to do justice by her vision. Later works forwent the detectives entirely. Her stories took on the perspectives of victims and sometimes the killers themselves.

As he read, Al could feel his heart begin to race, and he knew it was for all the wrong reasons.

* * *

“What are the odds,” Al asked one day, “that both of us would be so—“

“—Certifiably insane?”

“—Drawn to violence?” Al finished. “I like yours better.”

Gloria let out an amused huff, about the closest she ever got to laughing. “Not as low as you’d think. Spend too much time with yourself, and every idiosyncrasy starts feeding back on itself. You’ll have people calling you mad before you know it.”

Too much time with themselves, huh. That they’d certainly had, Al for obvious reasons, and Gloria because the people she could talk to numbered fewer than her fingers.

“Ha! They don’t know what they’re missing out on,” Al said. “I’m easily the best company I’ve ever known. No offense.”

“Some taken.” She gave him a wry look, then tilted her head. “What’s it like, talking to your demon?”

Al’s smile was genuine, ear to ear and eyes alight. “Infuriating! He’ll talk circles around you until you’d sell your soul for a chance to get one over on him. Then he’ll offer you a buck for it, and you’ll walk away thinking you made out like a bandit until you do the math.”

“So he’s you.”

For a moment Al’s heart leapt, but she didn’t know what she was saying. She’d never met the real Alastor, only a pale imitation just barely past the starting line. “Oh, no, Gloria. You have no idea.”

* * *

Despite Gloria’s morbid tastes, she had no desire to act on any of them. Her hands were clean of everything but ink. If not for Alastor’s utter lack of concern, Al would have suspected a trap. Even so, it took almost a year of small, surreptitious tests before Al could tell her the rest.

Most of the tests were verbal. Offhand questions and hypotheticals and overly dark jokes. The last was practical. Spring had come around again, the two were sitting in the park, and Al picked up a handful of pebbles. It wasn’t long before Gloria was annoyed, not because he was throwing them at birds but because he was stalling the conversation. When he hit one, she wasn’t shocked but mildly impressed. When he pulled out a knife to start cutting it apart, she looked over his shoulder not with disgust or horror or even curiosity, but fascination.

On the way home Al finally asked the question that had been on his mind for years, the one Alastor categorically refused to answer. “Do you think there are others who can talk to their demons?”

Maybe he’d given it away somehow, his signs too sharp or his hands too tense. Maybe she’d known it was coming or in a split second realized the implications. Whatever the reason, she gave the idle question her full, undivided attention.

“That depends. How do you do it?”

“Magic.”

Gloria gave him a deeply unimpressed look that he didn’t deserve in the slightest.

“You think I’m joking? That’s what it is! Alastor always knows if someone’s watching him, no matter where they are, and I have no idea how.”

“Fine.” Gloria sighed. “So you can do magic—” Al raised his hands in protest, but she shook her head before he even started signing. “I’m not spelling out ‘Alastor’ every time. You can do magic, but most demons can’t, or at least not that sort. We’d all know about it otherwise. Is it an overlord thing? You said you were the only one who used to be human.”

If only. That’d make everything so much simpler.

“Let me ask a different question,” Al signed. “If there is someone else who can talk to their demon, what should I do about it?”

“Do you have to do anything?” She signed, then her brow furrowed and she held up a hand. “Wait, I get it. If they can talk to their demons, that means they can do magic, and if they can do magic, they’re a threat. But . . . no, that doesn’t make sense. If it’s magic you’re worried about, what about the other overlords? Why focus on people talking to their demons?”

“Because I’m not the only one who can change my future.  _ I _ can’t do magic, and Alastor has enemies. What if one of them gets the bright idea to tell their human to kill me?”

Al signed it casually as he walked, but Gloria froze in her tracks. When he looked back, she was bone white, her fists balled in her skirts, and Al couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight.

“What? Scared of death now that it’s closer than words on a page? We’ve been going on about Hell this whole time. I can’t exactly get there without dying.”

It was sheer, boundless aggravation that finally freed her hands from her clothes. “You’re my friend, Al! I don’t want to watch you die!”

“Why?” Al scoffed. “It’s not like we’ll never see each other again.”

In that moment Gloria looked for all the world like an old porcelain doll, but livid instead of eerily blank. Her face was still ghostly pale from shock, but splotches of bright red fury were spreading across her cheeks. It wasn’t a bad look on her, but Al didn’t get to enjoy it for long. She turned her head and stomped past him, refusing to uncurl her fists until they reached her home.

“Goodbye!” she signed, then slammed the door behind her.


	10. Missing

Gloria left the next day before either of them had a chance to apologize, but that was fine. Neither of them was going to.

Al had long since accepted the fact that he’d die young. April fourteenth, 1933. He’d be an even thirty, if all went according to plan. The sooner Gloria understood, the easier it’d be to cope when it finally happened.

Besides, it’d be safer to get it over with. As long as he was human, he was vulnerable. A single careless decision could throw his future off course, and that was without weighing in the odds of another demon-speaker sinking a knife in his gut.

That’d be the worst case scenario. Getting unexpectedly killed, sent to Hell, then killed again, permanently, upon arrival, but every time Al thought about it, he got tangled in loops of impossible logic. How could he get stabbed and not see it coming? Every surprise in Al’s life was one Alastor allowed. Not even a fellow demon-speaker could get by Alastor’s hindsight, could they?

And even if they did kill Al, he’d be in Hell and they wouldn’t. At least not yet. He’d be untouchable, annoyed, and free to spend an extra decade gathering power and plotting revenge for when his killer died.

But if Al killed them in Hell, then how were they supposed to tell their human to kill Al in the first place? It’d be an unstable timeline, full of effects without causes, and according to Alastor those were pruned from the tree of causality like dead, withered leaves.

None of it made sense, and Al was tired of drawing invisible diagrams in the air. Maybe he shouldn’t have—no. What happened with Gloria wasn’t his fault, and he wouldn’t apologize.

He flopped back on his bed with a groan and a headache and lay there. It wasn’t long before Alastor’s words were echoing through his mind again.  _ Smile, kid, even if no one’s watching. _ Letting it slip would be weakness, a sign of feeble will and a fragile heart. Not once had Al caught Alastor without one, and he forced the corners of his mouth up in a cheerless grin.

* * *

There was no one left to talk to. Al’s father didn’t have the slightest inkling of his son’s fate. Only Mother did, but she couldn’t know the rest. Al knew that if he told her, she’d help him find answers to all of his questions. But he wouldn’t. She’d said long ago that he could tell her anything, but that was a sad, well-meaning lie.

Mother was a kind woman, devoted to Al’s happiness no matter what form it took. No matter the fear and worry and remorse that twisted her heart when she thought of him in Hell. It showed in her eyes sometimes, and Al had long since sworn never to intentionally remind her.

She still took him to the rituals. Maybe she hoped they’d change his fate. Maybe she just wanted him to have a little bit of godliness in him, even in Hell. They still talked about Heaven, but only in the abstract. She spoke of God and the loa, gave him gris-gris to keep him healthy and safe, and taught him scatterings of French so he could sing along. She passed down knowledge, but never judgment.

Al’s mother was clever. If she knew the truth, she could help, but Al refused to make her contemplate his dying. He wouldn’t let her imagine him killing.

* * *

Asking Alastor was doomed to fail, but the mirror was right there, and Al did it anyway.

“I’m missing pieces. Give me a hint.”

Alastor signed his reply with a wave and a flourish. “Hmm. Nope!”

It was only because he’d expected as much that Al’s smile didn’t falter. Instead it widened into one he’d seen on Alastor so many times before, all narrowed eyes and canines and suppressed malice. Maybe it was pride that swayed Alastor, maybe just inevitability, but he did give Al the tiniest something in return. A vague hint of a hint and a bit of assurance.

“Oh Al. I can’t give you the answers now, or you’ll never learn to piece them together yourself! You have all you need. You’re just looking at it all wrong.”

* * *

Al may have grumbled, but the next day he tried it. A change of perspective. Not a worst case scenario but a best case. Not how another demon-speaker might harm him, but how Al could most thoroughly annihilate his enemy.

He’d start with the first step. Kill them in the real world. Eliminate the threat where he was vulnerable, then tie up loose ends. Kill their demon. Close the loop.

But how? Every answer raised more questions, but now the uncertainty wasn’t a safety net. It was an obstacle, and Al swore he would overcome it.

How could he kill a demon when he wasn’t in Hell himself? Simple. Summon another. Offer up a sacrifice and let the two duke it out. It wasn’t perfect. It rankled to leave the fate of an enemy to a hired assassin, but he set the question aside for now, tentatively solved.

How could he kill someone who knew in advance how they would die? It was Gloria who’d first brought it up years ago, but Al had been too preoccupied to pay it any mind then. He wondered if he could find the article she’d read—if the researchers had made any progress—but it didn’t matter. They were trying to predict death, not write a how-to guide for murderers. Maybe Gloria would . . .

No. He was getting off track, and he couldn’t go begging her for help.

But he  _ could _ ask Alastor. If killing demon-speakers was in Al’s future, it’d be in Alastor’s past. He’d know all the precautions the speaker would take and all the ways to get around them because he’d done it himself. He could tell Al where to go and what to do, down to the choreography of every step. He could show Al where to stab, and the speaker would know exactly when to step back to make Alastor a liar.

If Alastor was wrong, his past wouldn’t be Al’s future. The afterlight would shift.

A lead weight settled in Al’s gut, and he gritted his teeth and shut the book on that line of thought before the smile could slip from his face. So that was a causality battle. It wasn’t a fight for Al’s existence but for his future. For Alastor’s.

Later. He’d come back to it later.

* * *

“You have a letter,” Al’s father announced one day at dinner.

It was sitting atop a pile of unremarkable bills and adverts. Neat stationary addressed in an elegant hand, the return address somewhere in Alabama. Gloria. Al sprinted to his room, almost tore apart the envelope, then let out a breath and pulled the knife from his pocket.

_ Alastor _ , it started. His demon’s name and no endearment, not even as a formality. Al almost laughed but couldn’t decide before he read on whether it was from amusement or nerves.

_ Alastor, _

_ Everything you say about yourself is true. More than anyone I have ever had the displeasure to meet, you deserve the fate you see for yourself. You are a fiend who would make even the most devoted friend question her sanity, but you are a friend. _

_ You are my friend, and I have not and will never regret the choices that led this to be the case. You are my friend, and I cannot in good conscience stay silent while your life is at risk. If you were anyone else I would entreat you to stay safe, but I know better now than to ask. The danger to you is your existence itself. Removing that would be rather counterproductive. _

_ There is much I do not understand of your relationship with Alastor or your insight into the future, but I am willing to learn and, moreover, to help. In any way I can short of selling my own soul. It may be irreparably damned for this, but I’d prefer to keep it my own, thank you very much. _

_ Undeservedly yours, _

_ Gloria _

Al read the letter a half dozen times before hiding it in a stack of papers. What a gal, to look Al’s impending death in the eye and fight to avoid it. What a friend. A better one that Al had been, and not just to her.

Al took a deep breath before pushing himself to his feet. It was time to stare down his own fear of losing Alastor and turn it to resolve. It was time for a long chat with his mirror.


	11. Progress

Before he said anything else, there was one thing Al had to know. “Alastor. What does it mean to sell your soul?”

Anyone else might have regretted the question the moment they asked it. That grin would have meant trouble on the face of a saint, but on Alastor’s it was certain doom. There’d be no escaping, no hiding, no hills to run for. Just useless adrenaline as he stood pinned, knowing fight and flight would both be death.

Al loved that grin, but then he’d been doomed from the start.

"Ha! Selling your soul doesn’t mean a thing while you’re still human. You get to reap the rewards and live out the rest of your life knowing you’ve damned yourself to eternity in Hell.” Then, for a moment, Alastor stopped his usual posturing. His eyes locked with Al’s until Al could see nothing behind them but the monster curled under Alastor’s skin. Its signs were slow, deliberate, and deathly sinister, and the breath caught in Al’s throat.

“But the minute you get here, you’re living a half-life. My will is yours, and your power mine. My words become your only commandments. There is no defiance and no escape, not even in true, angel-granted death. Your body may fester and your mind flicker out, but your soul remains forever bound until all that’s left is a small, obedient shadow.”

Al’s blood felt like fire and ice, sending chills down his spine and raising goosebumps on his arms even as his face heated up. His heart beat out a staccato rhythm too fast and too loud for just standing in his bathroom, but surroundings were irrelevant when talking to Alastor. The demon had a way of filling a room until all Al could see were those bright, blood red eyes and the crescent blade of his smile.

Oh, he couldn’t wait to learn that trick.

Alastor gave him a minute to calm down, sliding back into his normal exuberance and signing away all the while.

“Let me tell you, kid. That was as much fun on my end as I remember it being on yours. You’re in for a real treat, getting yourself as an audience. Most people are too busy panicking to appreciate a good threat, but look at you! You’re having the time of your life! Now what is it you’re really here for?”

The string of compliments did nothing to soothe Al’s nerves, but that was just another test.

“I figured it out.”

* * *

There wasn’t a trace of apology in Al’s reply, but Gloria wouldn’t be expecting any. She’d known who he was and sent the first letter anyway.

_ My dear Gloria, _

_ It’s good to see you’ve come to your senses and chosen not to deprive yourself of my company! Sanity is for the boring! _

_ At any rate, I cannot ask you to fight my battles for me, and I mean that very literally. It’s not in my future and certainly not in yours. If you attempt it, you’ll surely die. Forewarning can only be fought with forewarning, and that’s something you sorely lack. _

For a moment Al set his pen down. Useful. Alastor said she’d be useful, but she couldn’t fight. Still, Al had only grasped the broad strokes of how to deal with a demon-speaker. Actually starting the fight was another matter. Would Alastor tell him one day to take a walk, turn right at the post office, and stab the first person he saw? Would there be no context, only fate?

The puzzle was far from solved, but perhaps Gloria could help with that. It was a change in perspective that had given Al his first breakthrough. He picked up his pen.

_ I’ve made progress, but there is much even  _ I  _ do not understand of my insight into the future. Alastor is tight-lipped as a statue when he chooses to be. He’s left me with a Gordian knot but kept the sword. I’ll take all the help I can get. _

_ And besides, I’ve missed your stories. Send me one, and I’ll tell you everything I know, deal? _

_ Yours truly, _

_ Al _

__

* * *

It was fun writing to Gloria. Pen pals, Al’s father called them. Conspiracy would have been closer to the truth. Or cult maybe.

It took several rounds of back-and-forth to properly fill her in. Details kept coming up that were self-evident to Al but caught Gloria completely off guard.

_ You can die in Hell? How? I’ve read of people regenerating from being crushed to paste! How do you get more dead than paste? Aren’t souls supposed to be immortal? _

Al chuckled, wondering idly if Alastor had been responsible for any of the pastings.

_ They are immortal, and I fully plan to live forever, but immortal is not invulnerable. Blessed weapons can kill a demon for good. Executioners’ weapons. Why do you think demons are so terrified of the Cleanse? _

Gloria’s reply was loaded with defensive sarcasm. How could she  _ possibly _ have thought that mere _ temporary _ mass slaughter by angels from on high was terrifying? Clearly it was Hell’s equivalent of a lovely stroll. But her letter ended on a small question.

_ What happens to you if you die in Hell? _

It was one Al had asked Alastor years ago.

_ Afterlight doesn’t work there, so probably nothing. Your soul fades away and gets absorbed by the fabric of Hell. Unless you’ve bound it to another demon, that is. _

All of this would have taken minutes to straighten out in person. Each thought would have taken seconds to sign instead of days of waiting for the post. By the time Gloria was caught up, school was out and summer had come around again.

* * *

It didn’t take a minute for Gloria to notice the scar, bright pink and glaring across Al’s left palm. It wasn’t something he could hide while signing, so he hadn’t bothered. And really, what was the point?

“Al! Did you cut yourself?” she signed, then grabbed Al’s hand for a closer look. It was a few seconds before she realized he couldn’t reply and let go.

“Of course not. I simply found myself in a knife fight!”

“A knife fight,” she blankly repeated. Then came the anger. “A knife fight? And you didn’t tell me? This has to be weeks old!”

“Two to be precise,” Al signed. “Don’t worry. It was perfectly mundane. ‘No causality battles until you move out’ Alastor said, but he did add that it wouldn’t hurt to brush up on my knife skills. That was a lie. It turns out there’s a fair bit of pain involved after all.”

Al had on his brightest grin, and not even Gloria was immune to its charms. Her irritation surged, broke, and washed away with the tide. “At least tell me you won.”

“But of course! You think I could pick a fight, lose, and get away with just a scratch? Gloria, Gloria. When I provoke someone I can’t help but go the full nine yards.”

That, she could believe. The unimpressed set of her brows and the smile tugging at her lips said more than words could. Then she gasped and her eyes flew wide. ”What happened to—? You didn’t get arrested, did you?”

“Oh, no, no. Would you believe the fellow got away without a scratch? He didn’t much cotton to having a knife at his neck, you see. I got this when he pulled his out of my grip and ran.”

Gloria looked at him like he was insane, then sighed. “Al. Please tell me I misread that. Tell me you didn’t actually grab a knife by the blade.”


	12. Twilight

The last year of high school passed like a brief twilight. It was there and gone before Al knew it, even as he counted days like waiting for the sun to dip below the horizon.

His correspondence with Gloria turned toward the mundane. Even with a whole summer to conspire, all they’d come up with were possibilities. Alastor was as forthcoming as ever, so there was nothing left to do but wait and go about their lives.

The Great War ended without touching either of them directly—no friends or siblings old enough to lose to the draft and no parents young enough—and in its wake culture was booming. A new radio station was getting its footing in downtown New Orleans, and Al made sure to hang around long enough to be the first they thought of when a spot opened up. The work was menial—part assistant, part gofer, part technical aide for all the day-to-day tasks that didn’t need a proper engineer—but it got his foot in the door. That was enough for now.

He still went to Mother’s rituals, and after an offhand mention in one of his letters he ended up passing on the teachings to Gloria. She didn’t believe, of course, but neither of them pretended that mattered anymore. What  _ was _ annoying was her surprise at learning Al wasn’t a Satanist.

_ Oh, please,  _ she wrote.  _ You should hear the way you go on about Alastor, and you know voodoo has a reputation. _ That it did, he had to admit. A reputation for being the exact opposite of everything Mother told him.

It wasn’t entirely undeserved either. Al had asked the others at the rituals when Mother wasn’t looking, all under the guise of innocent curiosity.

“I won’t tell your mama, boy, but mind yourself,” one man had said, then pulled Al in close and spoke quietly in his ear. “Sometimes the only way to save someone’s to stop the one hurting them. God knows it. Your ancestors knew it. But there’s a price. Before you use gris-gris for harm, boy, ask yourself if it’s out of love or out of hate. There’s only one of those God forgives.”

In retrospect, maybe it really was innocent curiosity that led Al to ask. How odd to think of himself as innocent in any sense, but he had no intention of trying to curse anyone with gris-gris. No, if it was revenge he wanted, he’d prefer a more personal approach.

* * *

Gloria was back in town around mid-summer and got to be the first to tour his new apartment.

“Bit sparse, isn’t it?” were the first words she signed.

Al raised a hand to his heart and put on a wounded look. “I just moved in, Gloria! Give me a couple more paychecks! I swear my once-humble abode will one day live up to your high and noble sensibilities!”

Gloria’s eyes were closed in a silent laugh, so Al wandered over to the room’s sole furnishings. He took a seat on the chair, leaned an elbow on the table, and flipped on the radio, not that she would hear it. The sound of Dixieland jazz filled the room, and Al tapped his feet along to the beat.

“So, are you engaged yet?” he signed when Gloria caught her breath, and immediately she was glaring at him.

“How many times have I told you? The balls were for meeting people, not getting betrothed on the spot!”

“So did you?”

She shook her head. “It’s hard to get to know someone through a notebook and a translator.”

Al raised a brow. “Are you sure there wasn’t another reason? I pity the poor souls who asked for your hand in a dance.”

“Al, you—” He didn’t recognize the sign, but the intent was obvious and only made him grin wider.

“Such language from our fair debutante! Where’d you even learn to swear in sign?”

He’d done it now. Gloria stalked over to look down on where he sat, still thoroughly pleased with himself. “Alastor. For once in your life, shut up.” She grabbed his hands before he could start a reply, pulled him out of his chair, and moved one of them to her waist.

Well then. If Al was going to eat his words, at least he’d get a dance out of it. A waltz would be easiest to start with, but the music was all wrong, and Gloria didn’t deserve to get off so easy. He led her through the first steps slowly so she’d know the dance, then pulled her into a fast-paced foxtrot.

And she kept up. Not only that, she was perfectly on beat, moving as if she heard the music as clearly as he did. Al couldn’t help but laugh, and she grinned back and added a spin to their footwork. Suddenly the lack of furniture was a blessing. The two twirled across the room, Gloria’s dress flowing behind her and a brilliant smile aglow on her face. Her eyes were scrunched tight as she  _ felt _ the music through the dance, like he’d told her to so many years ago.

As the song wound down Al threw in a final curveball. He raised Gloria’s hand over her head, and she gasped but made it through the spin. It was only on the last step that she stumbled, and the next seconds passed in a perfect clarity of slow motion.

Gloria tripped, lost her balance, leaned against Al to get it back. She looked up, her cheeks red from exertion and her eyes full of surprise and fond irritation and  _ something.  _ Her arm twined around Al’s shoulders and pulled down until their lips were together, and Al wasn’t sure whether to freeze or pull away. In the end he just stood there, feeling her arms around him and her mouth against his and thoroughly, incredibly out of place.

When she pulled away it was with a look Al had seen dozens of times before. Hope against hope and the knowledge that Al was about to crush it. Usually it was rage that followed, but as Gloria took in his blank stare, a smile spread across her face. It was sad and resigned and wavering even as she straightened her dress and walked to the door, but it was still a smile, still enough to know she’d be back. When she stopped in the doorway and signed, “I’ll see you tomorrow Al,” her words were honest.

* * *

The moment was never brought up again. Gloria came by the next morning, before Al’s shift and her party, but as they strolled through downtown she was more careful than ever to mind his personal space. The next time was the same, and the next, but a month later Al opened his door only for her to throw her arms around him and nearly knock them both to the ground.

“I got published!” she signed as soon as he peeled her off, then fished a magazine from her purse and thrust it into his hands. “It even made it on the cover!”

Al looked down and saw a spotlight on a detective and a terrified woman, and from outside that spotlight dozens of glowing eyes stared in.  _ “A chilling tale! A killer who knows his every move!” _ read the tagline.

“It’s just the first chapter for now, but we’re already editing the rest.” Gloria went on, but Al ignored her as he flipped through to the story. Those words rang too close to home, echoes of old theories they'd cobbled together. Surely she hadn’t, but no. The story was published under the name of G. D. Blake. Perhaps Gloria noticed his alarm, because she waved for his attention. “I’m not an idiot, Al. Of course I’d use a pen name, and my publisher said it’d be better if they didn’t know I was a woman. The house doesn’t have my address, and I do all my business in person. You said you still didn’t have any way to track other demon-speakers, so I figured this might help.”

* * *

Eight months later Gloria’s body washed up on the shores of the Mississippi, and Al found out to the sound of police pounding on his door.


	13. Reciprocity

Don’t smile. Don’t smile. There was a time for smiling—almost all the time in fact—but not now. Smiling was a sign of power. Of control they wouldn’t expect him to have after the murder of a friend. Especially if he was innocent.

“I called the station, chief. His alibi’s solid.” The door closed, and the officer interrogating Al—the chief himself, apparently—let out a sigh.

“Am I free to go?” Al asked, only barely disguising his resentment.

“Just a minute,” the man said. “I have a few more questions. Did you ever introduce the deceased to other voodoo practitioners?”

This again? They’d talked to Gloria’s parents, found her letters—small blessing that she’d only kept the non-incriminating ones—saw the veves he’d sketched for her, and connected the dots without bothering to do the reading. Idiots. Al had spent the entire evening at work. His alibi was airtight, so now they were grasping at straws.

“No. Am I free to go?”

Al stood up, and the chief made no more move to stop him than a deeply disapproving glare. “Young man, the more you can tell us, the closer we’ll be to making the streets safe again. You can help see to it that your friend gets justice for what was done.”

It’d save them the embarrassment, too, of having no suspects in the murder of a rich, white girl. It had to be a high profile case if the chief himself was handling interrogations. 

Al finally allowed himself a thin, bitter smile. “The only thing I want to see is a drink, but that’s illegal now, isn’t it? If you’ll excuse me, my friend is dead, and my home is a mess, so thanks for that.” Nobody stopped him when he walked out the door.

* * *

Al had told only one lie to the police chief. “The only thing I want to see is a drink.” Even that was still a half-truth.

Some speakeasies were bright and lively, but the afterlight bar Al knew was the opposite. It was a somber place, full of sinners well into the day’s binge before the sun had even set. They were the folk who’d long ago given up on Heaven and decided to make the best of their fates. Al joined them at the counter for some smuggled rum, then drifted to a secluded corner and leaned back in his chair. There was a smile on his face, and anyone who didn’t know him would read it as tired satisfaction.

Alastor could see right through it though. Alastor saw only  _ tired. _

“There’s no chance this was unrelated, is there?” Al signed it not caring if anyone was watching. He didn’t bother saying the words aloud or even mouthing them. “Useful, you said. Useful. You didn’t tell me how.”

“Oh, Al. You should know better by now.” Alastor’s smile was small for once and about as sympathetic as the demon was capable of being.

“Change the past and it’ll change the future. Of course I know.” Al turned away and stared at the ceiling, refusing to let Alastor interrupt him. “But why is that my future? Why do I have a future where I can’t tell myself my friend is going to die? I only want to know. I wouldn’t have tried to save her if you told me not to. Did you . . . do you not trust me? Did you not want to let me choose between you and Gloria? It’s you. I’ll always pick you. Always.”

Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe the day finally catching up to him, maybe finally putting the thought into words. Whatever the reason, Al stared up unblinking until his eyes dried and tears weren’t threatening to spill over. Only then did he turn back to the mirror.

“Al. I trust you more than anyone,” Alastor signed. That didn’t mean much, Al knew. Exact words. He still felt them sink in and wrap around him as Alastor went on. “I know you wouldn’t try to change it. That’s why I didn’t tell you. Better to enjoy your last days together without the specter of death hanging overhead, don’t you think?”

Al knew his game, ending the sentence with a superficial question to keep him engaged. He answered anyway. “Ask me tomorrow. And the day after that. Keep asking, and eventually I’ll start to agree with you, won’t I? That’s how these things work.”

“It is, but tomorrow’s not a good day. Tomorrow you’ll be busy.” Alastor’s normal grin was back, a predator’s grin with too many sharp teeth. “Now how do you feel about some good old-fashioned revenge?”

Al looked down. A rum and coke stood in front of him, dark and sickly sweet and the last he’d need to push himself from tipsy into properly drunk. With a sigh he levered himself out of his chair and left it on the table. “Alastor. It’s about time you showed me how to summon a demon.”

* * *

Alastor had said it long ago. Life was the key. The bridge between the realms of living and dead. The sacrifice to open the gate.

Mother’s rituals were benign. Heaven wanted nothing more than energy freely given and life lived to its fullest. A song and dance was enough. If it worked the participants might find themselves more drained than normal but otherwise no worse for the wear.

Hell was rather more demanding.

The candles flared as the incantation took hold, burning impossibly fast and bright until they ran out of wick and the room was plunged into darkness. Al hummed a light tune as he struck a match and went around lighting spares.

The first revealed the demon swearing in the center of its pentacle and the dark circles under Al’s eyes. The second lit up his desk and the clock on it showing four in the morning. The third showed the room to be just as messy if the police had left it, if not more so. Furniture had been shoved aside and papers scattered then swept into corners, all to make room for the bloody summoning circle in the middle of the floor.

“God fucking damn it! Not one of you shits again! Afterlight: worst fucking invention in the history of all mankind! Can’t go a year without some fucker or other calling me up like I’m a goddamn genie to wish for an extra inch on their dick! Lucifer needs to start punishing this shit with—” He sniffed the air. “The fuck even is this? Rabbit?”

“Squirrel,” Al chirped, and that was the final straw.

“Fucking  _ squirrel? _ You think you can drag me here with fucking  _ squirrel blood _ and—” The demon’s finger jabbed out and bounced off a vertical plane at the edge of the pentacle. Only then did he stop and look around. The circle at his feet was neatly drawn and bolstered with runes of binding. Just outside its borders, Al had pulled up a chair and was tapping his feet to his own tune. Al’s smile was still tired, but it went from ear to ear, and his eyes were glittering. The demon breathed out an impressed, ”. . . Shit.”

“My apologies for the squirrel blood. It was the best I could do on such short notice. And for the binding, but I had a sense you’d react this way.” There wasn’t a hint of apology on Al’s face or in his voice, but the demon was far from offended. “Now then. If you’re done with the theatrics, my name is Alastor. What say you we make a deal?”

Al reached into the circle to pass along a neatly rolled up bit of stationary. It rather defeated the purpose of the binding runes, but by now he had the demon’s interest.

“Aren’t you a bit young to be selling your soul, kid?” the demon asked as he skimmed the contract. At the bottom were two lines for signatures, one of them already filled with a dark red squiggle. “And what’s this? More squirrel?”

“Oh, I’m not selling a soul. I’m buying.” The demon looked at Al like he’d gone insane, but Al just chuckled and held up a finger. “And no. What kind of reprobate seals a deal in squirrel blood? That’s mine.”


	14. Tactics

In the next week Al’s apartment only grew into more of a mess. The pentacle in his living room was covered up by scattered papers, as was most of the floor. The only clear spaces were paths between his front door, bedroom, radio, and a full-length mirror and lamp. It was around the latter that the mess was concentrated, and it was there that Al sat, nearly halfway through a box of letters.

It hadn’t been difficult to get Gloria’s editor to give him her fan mail. “Oh, you must be Al!” she’d said, blissfully unaware of Gloria’s death. The grin had slipped off her face when he told her, and Al hated that he had to force his own to match. It almost made him wish he was in Hell already.

It shouldn’t have been so easy. A pulp fiction editor should’ve considered that there might be a clue in her client’s letters, but she passed them on without so much as a care. The police should have gotten to them before Al, but Gloria had kept her writing a secret from her family and Al certainly hadn’t told them. It was all too perfectly serendipitous, but according to Alastor, that was what happened when causality itself was working in one’s favor. Gloria hadn’t stood a chance.

* * *

“Causality battles always start with a handshake,” Alastor explained. “One side makes the first move, and this time poor Gloria did it for us. The rest is a matter of doing the legwork and putting the pieces together until you finally meet.”

Al tossed aside another useless fan letter. “And you can’t just tell me where that is because. . .?”

Alastor laughed at that, then shook his head. “Oh, Al. Can you imagine how absurd our lives would be if I could do that? Effects without causes! Self-contained loops, unbound by probability, just waiting to be pruned! No, no, no. There’s an method to these things, answers you have to find for yourself. Haven’t you noticed that for everything I’ve taught you, you laid the groundwork yourself?”

It was almost true. From sign to voodoo to the metaphysics of their shared existence, Alastor had always waited for Al to take the first steps. Only when it came to summonings had he given more than hints, but that was information that Al could only learn straight from Hell.

“So watching me run around in circles isn’t  _ just _ for fun,” Al muttered under his breath as he skimmed another letter. Then he tossed it aside and signed, “What’s stopping me from turning him in to the police? Besides the obvious, I mean.”

Alastor answered the question but chuckled as if he’d heard the rest as well. “I should think it’s all obvious. You don’t want the future to change. You know the police can’t catch him. You wouldn’t want your deal to fall through, and above all else, you want to make him pay with your own two hands, don’t you?”

Al looked at the hands in question, marred by a half-dozen papercuts and a long white scar across one palm. Soon they would be the hands of a murderer, and Al clenched them into fists before they could tremble at the thought.

* * *

Al knew he’d finally found the letter the moment he opened the envelope.

_ I know you’re reading this. Thursday night, 11 PM, 12 Billingsworth Court. _

“Billingsworth Court?” Al signed at the mirror.

“You’ll look it up in the library tomorrow. It’s an old street a ways southeast of you, abandoned after a flood. Your friend there’ll be bringing a revolver and doesn’t want to draw a crowd.”

“A revolver.” Alastor had that look like he knew exactly what he’d said, and Al shot him as exasperated a grin as possible. “Alright. Am I going to serendipitously stumble across a gun of my own in the next couple days, or am I going into this with just a knife and your guidance?”

“Neither!” Al’s grin slipped into unimpressed, and Alastor laughed before he elaborated. “I won’t be guiding you!”

For a moment Al felt sick, right up until it was overcome with bright, stabbing anger. He kept his signs very deliberately slow and steady. “Isn’t the point of a causality battle to know how it’s going to go from the start? Isn’t that why Gloria died? Because she didn’t?”

“Gloria died because her future was unstable. More so than yours or your enemy’s, and neither of those could permit her to live.” Then Alastor’s smile flipped from the conciliatory one he’d taken to using around Gloria to his usual amusement. “But you do have a future, and a remarkably stable one at that! Would you like to know why?”

“Why?” Al signed, but Alastor was already explaining.

“Because I won’t be made a liar. Do you remember how you win a causality battle?”

“Force the present to contradict their future.”

“And how do you do that?”

That was where Al drew a blank. Oh, he could think of plenty of ways. He could stab himself in the heart right now and bleed out on his living room floor. That would quite thoroughly disrupt the timelines of all involved, but the trick was changing the enemy’s future while keeping his the same. He’d thought the only way to do it was to have Alastor’s guidance and hope for the best, but apparently even that wasn’t an option.

And Alastor just grinned along as Al’s hands tapped restlessly on the letter. “Come now,” he signed. “You have the answers, you just don’t realize it. What is it that changes afterlights? What was it that changed yours all those years ago?”

“A choice,” Al signed, and the implications caught up to him like a flood.

Alastor beamed at him. “Exactly. There’s a reason the other guy favors a revolver. He’s expecting a neat, orderly contest. Count the bullets, aim where he’s told, and the outcome is preordained. The fewer choices he makes, the fewer ways it can go wrong. But you? You know better, don’t you? You can’t fight order with more order. No, what you’ll do is make a mess and try to trip him every step of the way. I’ll give you a couple hints, but no more. The rest’ll be on you, kid. Get out there, and go nuts.”

There was that familiar tension again, the rush before a fight, but there was so much more at stake than ever before. “What if I—?”

“Make a mistake? Change your future?” Alastor shook his head. “You haven’t in all this time, and you won’t now. I trust you.”

And that—the halfway ironic smile, those words, and everything about the moment—sent an entirely different kind of warmth through Al’s veins. It blended with the adrenaline and settled as a calm assurance that everything would turn out as planned. The alternative would be disappointing Alastor, and that was unallowable. Absolutely unconscionable.


	15. Battle

12 Billingsworth Court creaked in the late evening wind. Its wood was stained with dirt and water damage, but it wasn’t as much of a dump as Al expected. The place looked structurally sound at least. Candlelight flickered through its boarded up windows and open front door.

It was practically an invitation. How considerate.

Al was early, though, and he waited a while before taking it. Alastor had given him two warnings, and the first was a word. The fight wouldn’t start until he and the other speaker had a chat, so there was no harm in taking a seat on the porch and whistling a few radio hits. As he did, Al twirled his camping knife between his fingers. He’d gotten some practice in front of his mirror in the last few days, but even his thinnest gloves dulled the sensation. Muscle memory would have to be enough, Al decided as he got up, walked through the door, and dropped his bag in the entryway.

A pair of candles cast a flickering glow down the hall, and more light was coming from a doorway to his left. Inside was a single piece of furniture, a broken coffee table with two of its legs snapped off. A man with graying hair sat on the raised end, but when he looked up his face was surprisingly young. The revolver rested in his hands, but he kept it pointed at the floor.

“Shit,” the man muttered, then asked louder. “How old are you, boy?”

Al’s whistling cut off mid-note, throwing the room into strained silence. He’d take the “kid” comments from Alastor. Those were earned and mostly affectionate by now, but this was downright insulting.

“Eighteen,” he answered anyway, because at least  _ he _ had some manners.

“Eighteen, huh.” The man let out a bitter laugh. “Betcha didn’t even see the war. Tell me then, what’s it take to get yourself damned before you’re old enough to enlist, huh?”

Al leaned against the door frame. “No idea. I’ve been seeing Hell since I really was a boy.”

The man shook his head. “Got ourselves a fuckin’ natural here, don’t we, grinning like the devil himself? No point trying to change your mind then, is there? Not like I had a choice.” He let out a deep sigh. “Well at least you’re legal. I’d hate to kill a kid.”

And there was the cue Alastor had warned him of.  _ Kid. _ Al felt another stab of annoyance, but more important was the bullet whizzing over his head as he ducked.

And beyond that was the black, black circle of the gun muzzle staring him down. Anyone else might’ve been pinned. Anyone else might have frozen, but Al had spent years meeting Alastor’s gaze and knowing it could do far worse than a bullet. Everything up to now had been according to plan. Here was his first choice, and before Al could think he’d already made it.

The knife was out of his hand and hurtling at his enemy. The throw was terrible and probably hit handle-first. Al didn’t see, but it was distraction enough to throw off the man’s aim. Al ducked around the door frame, and from his left came the sound of splintering wood. Two bullets spent. Four to go.

Four to go, and all Al had managed was to throw away his weapon and make more distance between himself and a gunman. He still had a spare. In his pocket was his small, trusty school knife. Al pulled it out, and it settled in his hand like an old friend even despite the gloves.

The odds were against him, but Al’s grin only widened. He didn’t know how, but he was going to win. Alastor had said it himself, but even as Al thought it two shots rang out. A hot line of pain speared across his shoulder.

He didn’t shout. He couldn’t shout or he’d give away his position, but Al’s breath left him in a sharp hiss as he sank silently into a crouch. Idiot. Why had he thought he’d be safe behind a wall? Old, mildewed plywood wouldn’t stop a bullet.

And worst of all, the shot was right near the spot where he’d cut himself all those years ago. All for Alastor’s entertainment, with the very knife that he was holding now. It better not have scratched the scar. Al liked that scar.

The pain in his arm deepened into a sharp stabbing, and Al took a deep breath. He forced his fingers to loosen where they’d dug into his shoulder, but for a moment anger cut through the adrenaline and brought every thought to a screeching halt. A crystal clarity took their place and brought with it two realizations.

The first was that Alastor was right. None of the metaphysics or implications or causal absurdities mattered. The hints Al had been given would level that playing field, and from there was a normal fight. That was Alastor’s gift. The chance for Al to be himself and the assurance that it was all he needed to be. After all, this was exactly how Alastor fought, standing as close as he dared to the brink of defeat before turning it on its head.

Second, Alastor was right again. The other speaker was confident to the point of cockiness. Seconds had passed, but Al hadn’t heard the telltale click of reloading. There were two bullets left, and the man wouldn’t waste them shooting blindly through a wall. He’d wait for Al to make the first move, and that gave him time.

The creaking of the old house helped cover Al’s steps as he scooted toward his bag. Inside was a scattering of objects, but Al pulled out only two. His chef’s knife and a small jar of blood. He held the knife between his teeth and ignored the throb in his shoulder as he twisted the jar open. From behind him came the speaker’s voice.

“There’s no point hiding. You know I’m not going to come out, and I know you’re not going to run. You’re going to wait until the second I’m done talking before you show yourself, so why don’t you hurry up, get yourself out here, and get shot like a good little boy.”

And that was another choice. To listen to the man or not. It would’ve been easy to make him a liar—just run out before or long after he was done talking—but it wasn’t what Alastor would do. Alastor led his enemies on. He let them believe they would win right until the very end. What were causality battles if not a perfect chance for Al to do the same?

The moment Al heard those words, “good little boy,” he knew he’d made the right choice. The blade of his school knife was between Al’s thumb and forefinger, and as he darted through the doorway it arced cleanly at the gunman’s head.

He’d expected it of course. The man ducked the blade and looked up, but by then it was too late. The knife was nothing more than a distraction, and what he saw flying at him next was a wave of red.

“The fuck?” he swore, his voice pitching up with panic. He pulled the trigger, and Al’s grin widened as he froze. Alastor’s second piece of advice flew through his head.  _ “Don’t run until you’ve won!” _ A cute rhyme that suddenly made perfect sense. The wind from the bullet ruffled Al’s hair as it missed by an inch.

The rest was almost a formality. In a second he’d sprinted across the room, tackled the man to a wall, pressed a knife to his throat, and grabbed his arm.

“Drop the gun.”

“How—?“

Perhaps he’d been unclear. This time Al let menace creep into his cheer. “Drop. The gun.”

The revolver hit the ground with a clatter. 

“That’s better.” Al reached up to the speaker’s face, and he flinched away, but all Al did was wipe the blood from his eyes.

The man blinked and opened them wide with hope. “You’re—you’re not going to kill me?”

And that was the other benefit of smiling. People couldn’t help but let down their guards, even when they were in no position to do so. Al beamed widely, pulled the knife away, and ducked down to grab the gun. There was no kick—no retaliation—but Al darted back just in case.

It really was a fine sight. Helpless hope and a shaky smile that hesitantly mirrored Al’s own. Underneath lay the terror that Al would shatter all of it, and Al let out a chuckle before he answered.

“Oh, please! I’m nowhere near that shortsighted. There’s a deal I want you to make first, and as long as you want to avoid a more permanent death, you’ll agree to the terms.” There was still one bullet left, and Al aimed at the speaker’s head. The man froze, and Al took a moment to savor the hope slipping from his eyes. “You know, for a while I used to think I might even let you go. You have no chance against me now that your future’s changed.

“But then you killed my friend. I’ll repay the favor before the night is through, but not just yet.”

Al lowered his arm and pulled the trigger.


	16. Victory

“Oh do quit your moaning. You’re not the only one who got shot.”

That earned Al a glare, but a weak one. It dropped when Al raised his brows and gave his knife a twirl despite the burn in his bandaged shoulder.

The man had collapsed after the bullet to his knee and had barely moved since. He couldn’t fight and couldn’t run, and it wouldn’t matter if he could. His timeline was doomed, and Al had made his warning plenty clear. Anything more than sitting still and letting blood drip into the jar would earn him two slow and painful deaths.

“How’d you do it?” the man muttered. “Where’d the blood come from?”

“I had it all along. Seems the only world you could win in was one where I was senseless enough to forget.”

The man shook his head. “But how?  _ Why? _ Even in the war, everyone was right where  _ he _ said they’d be. Every single time. We thought—I thought he couldn’t be wrong. What makes you so special?”

The bitterness with which the man said 'he' told Al all he needed to know. He strode over to check the jar—half full, enough for a basic circle—and gave his bloodstained knee a sharp tap along the way. “Oh, but you never wanted to be  _ him, _ did you?”

It took a while for the man to even his breathing. His face was pale when he looked back up at Al. “Fuck no,” he spat. “What sort of lunatic wants to go to Hell?”

A grin and a raised brow were enough to answer that question. Al dipped a finger in the jar and started drawing the pentagram as he explained. “And  _ that’s _ why you lost. While you were getting dragged in your demon’s footsteps, I was chasing mine. I made my future more inevitable than yours, simple as that.”

And it was simple. All the overcomplicated metaphysics didn’t matter in the moment. Oh, it still paid to understand them. Better that than blindly following orders and wondering where he went wrong when his plans fell through. Al spared a glance at the other speaker as he started the incantation. No, Alastor would never stoop so low. He’d never be caught huddled around himself, frowning and wallowing in despair. Al would never have made it following the other man’s path.

This time the candles barely flickered in the summoning. It paid to use human blood, and the demon materialized with a deep inhale and an appreciative sigh.

“Now that’s more like it. None of the . . . ugh,  _ less _ of the squirrel bullshit. At least it’s a proper fucking circle this time. And this is the poor sap I’m dealing with?” A claw pointed over at the other speaker, and as Al nodded the demon’s grin widened to match. “Seems a bit light-headed. You sure he’s up to it?”

Al pulled a folded paper out of his bag. “The contract’s already written, and his end’s dead simple. All he has to do is sign on the dotted line. But first . . .”

Al held out the contract, and the demon bit his thumb but paused before signing. “You know, if I’m going to hand his soul back to you, then I’m left with nothing in the end. You sure you can’t, oh, I don’t know,  _ sweeten the deal?” _

“Ha!” Al threw an elbow around the demon’s shoulders, then moved his hand up and pulled the demon in until there was no choice but to make eye contact. His voice dropped low, quieter than the other speaker could hear, but still full of good cheer. “You get twelve years to do whatever you please short of killing him. That, and my personal assurance you’ll still be alive when my time’s up so we can finish our little deal. Believe me, by then you’ll be grateful to be on my good side.”

It figured that Alastor would send him a fool of a demon. Sealing his first contract with someone who’d take advantage would be a dire mistake. Still Al didn’t expect this level of self-destructive bravado. The demon smirked and turned toward the other speaker.

“It’s not too late, you know. Selling your soul’s not—“

Al’s hand tightened in the demon’s hair. “If I hear another word from anyone here, I swear I’ll make them pay for every letter.” His smile was wide and showed his canines and froze the air in the room until even the demon was holding his breath. Al gave a pointed look at the contract, and the demon signed it without a sound. “Thank you,” Al said, then turned his attention to the other speaker. “Now then. Clock’s ticking on the summoning. You can sign here, sell your soul, and live on as a demon, or I’ll arrange for your second death within the day.”

It may have been a bluff, but it was a good one. There was nothing Al could sacrifice to hire an assassin so quickly, but the other speaker wouldn’t know. The man held out his index finger with a sigh. A flick of Al’s knife drew a thin red line across it, enough for him to scrawl a sloppy signature across the page.

And with that the deal was done. Al had to fight to keep his fingers from trembling as the contract burned up in his hands.

“Are you—?” the man started. Then Al kicked his knee.

* * *

It was a long walk back to Al’s apartment in the middle of the night. The streets he took were quiet and abandoned, and that was for the best. He’d taken off the bloodstained gloves, but there wasn’t much he could do about the trail of it down his arm or the spatter across the rest of his clothes.

It was a quiet night, but the silence did nothing to quell the echoes ringing through Al’s head.

Before he did anything—before he hit the lights or washed the blood from his hands—Al walked over to his radio and flipped it on. Static. He should’ve known better. Nobody would be at the station in the dead of night, but he needed something to meld with the noise in his head. Something lively, with a beat he could move to to do  _ something _ with the knife-sharp energy racing across his nerves.

So Al did the next best thing. He turned on his afterlight.

Normally it took Alastor a second to notice and turn his way, but today he was waiting. Today he looked straight at Al, took in the light in his eyes, the blood on his clothes, and the tapping of his foot, and gave him such a bright, earnest smile that Al had to swallow the sudden lump in his throat. Then he held his hand out, reaching almost through the mirror, and somehow Al knew what he wanted before he could so much as think.

The glass was cold where he touched it. Impassable inches of space remained between their fingertips, but it was the closest they’d ever been. It was easy to pretend, as Alastor tapped his fingers to an unheard beat and Al followed, that their hands were joined.

With an unspoken, unconscious cue, both of them pulled away at once. The view through the mirror shifted dizzyingly, the afterlight following Alastor as they spun through their respective rooms. The demon’s eyes were closed, and Al didn’t recognize his dance, but that didn’t matter. He’d learn it eventually, and the rhythm was the same. His own eyes slid shut as he let it take him away.

Even with his spirit broken, the speaker had been been too proud to let Al hear him scream. Every time he started, he’d clenched his teeth and cut it short, but that was even better. The trembling hisses as he drew in breath, the quiet gasps and whimpers as he lay on his side and tried not to move anything painful—all of it was music to Al’s ears.

If Alastor’s beat was the backbone—the drums—then those sounds made the body of the song. The sax and the trumpet. And then there was the background accompaniment. Piano, guitar, clarinet. The pain in Al’s shoulder as it dulled to a throbbing ache, the demon’s laugh fading away when the summons ended, and the vivid crimson sight and smell of blood.

Oh, it was brilliant.

And just as Al noticed that there was still a sense missing, his wish was granted. He spun on his heel, slipped on loose papers littering the floor, and bit hard on his tongue as his head hit the ground.

For a few seconds he lay there stunned, partly from surprise, partly pain, and partly the bright taste flooding through his mouth. Then his eyes flicked to the mirror, and Alastor was laughing.

“I need to do this again,” Al signed from the floor. Getting up would be more embarrassment than it was worth, and somehow all his energy had settled into a quiet, satisfied hunger.

“Don’t worry. You will, and soon.”

The two grinned at each other, and Al’s hand fumbled until he found another letter. Gloria, her death now well and thoroughly avenged. Was that what it was like for her to dance? No beat to anchor her besides the one she felt through him? No wonder she’d fallen in love.

“How is she doing?” Al signed. “I never see her with you.”


	17. Funeral

So this was what it meant for a friend to die. This was how it felt before afterlight proved that there was life after death. A hollow uncertainty. An empty hope that she might still be alive somewhere with a different name and a different face, even though Al knew Gloria had died a quiet second death in a cleanse.

Technically it hadn’t happened yet, but she would. Probably. Sometime in the next twelve years. It was the simplest explanation for why she hadn’t found Alastor.

“It’d be a waste of my time to look for her,” Alastor explained. “It’s the rare demon who keeps more than a trace of their old appearance.” There was a flash of pride at that, and Al felt an echo of it despite the circumstances. “And with a name like Gloria, she’ll have picked up a soubriquet within the week. There’s no finding a lost soul that doesn’t want to be found. The best you can do—the best you  _ will _ do—is make a name for yourself and wait for her to come to you.”

Assuming she wasn’t already dead.

Would she be able to hear in Hell? To speak? New body, new senses? Or would she be stuck signing away at demons who couldn’t understand a word?

She was supposed to die after him. Al had assumed as much when he couldn’t see her with Alastor. She was meant to find him well established and see the world as he saw it. None of the painful introductions. None of the usual struggle to carve out a place for herself in Hell. It wasn’t supposed to—no. That thinking was flawed. No matter the consequences, this was what it meant to follow Alastor’s path. No other end was possible.

“If you kill yourself now, you might still find her,” Alastor suggested.

Al gave that the most scornful smile he could muster. “I already told you. I choose you.”

* * *

Al liked to tell himself that that hollowness was behind his nighttime wanderings. It was the reason for the knives hidden in his pockets and tucked under his clothes.  _ Man disconsolate at the loss of a friend seeks a new way to fill the void. _ It struck him as more poetic than the truth.

His first victim was a lone drunk half-sneaking, half-staggering home through the back alleys. It was a crime not of planning but opportunity, and Al hastily disguised it as a mugging gone wrong. He rummaged through the man’s pockets, scattering keys and knick-knacks before he found a wallet. He emptied it of cash before tossing it aside and making his getaway.

The police found the body the next morning. It was a tragedy, but the man was single, friendless, and after all a drunkard, and there were no witnesses or evidence. The case was shelved in favor of ongoing investigations.

Al came away a few dollars richer and thoroughly regretting his choice. His first time deserved to be more than a furtive encounter in some alleyway.

It wasn’t really his first, Al tried to tell himself, but the thought still rankled. This murder was entirely his choice. No causal shenanigans, no forced confrontation, and he’d barely had time to enjoy it. A few seconds and he was done, and the rest was messy cleanup.

His next would be better, Al swore. Better planned, better prepared, and much, much more satisfying.

* * *

Al missed Gloria’s funeral. More accurately he wasn’t invited, but that was fine. It’d have been a joke anyway. The preacher would drone on about her innocent soul, taken from the world too young but safe now in Heaven. All the while her parents would stare daggers at Al through their tears.

Al had better ways of remembering Gloria. His apartment was still a mess, and most of it was letters from her fans. He spent his next day off finally returning order to the place.

Even under a pen name—even after hiding her face and age and gender—Gloria’s admirers understood her better than any preacher. Letter after letter was filled to the brim with praise. Her suspense was gripping, her concept chilling, and her murders dark and twisted. The romance between the detective and his client was at once steamy and tragic and a breath of fresh air amidst the violence. Every cliffhanger left them on the edge of their seats.

Al read each and every one aloud before lowering them into their box, all except the last. The letter from Gloria’s murderer he burned, letting the ashes fall across the rest. Over top of it all, Al placed his knife, then sealed the box for good.

* * *

Change was coming, and the most visible sign was a promotion at the station. Assistant Musical Director. What it amounted to was keeping his finger on the pulse of up-and-coming trends and making suggestions for the station’s track list. It was at least a few steps up from being a glorified coffee boy.

Change was coming, and Al knew what he had to do to prepare. Contracting with just one demon was too risky. Too much power in one place. It’d draw too many eyes too soon. Alastor may have taught Al the workings of summoning and given him his first contact, but the rest would be up to him.

When the demon appeared in Al’s living room, he certainly looked better than before. His back was straighter and his eyes a brighter shade of green, and he didn’t even complain about the squirrel. “Damn it, I’m supposed to be at work!” he grumbled instead.

Al raised a brow. “Still? No plans to use your newfound power?”

“It’s Hell. One soul’s not gonna get you far, especially if you can’t afford to lose it.” The demon gave Al a pointed look. “I’ve got a few things lined up, but good deals don’t drop into your lap every day.”

“Then do I have news for you!” Al beamed at the demon. “Get me a list of demons you’d be willing to deal with by Sunday—Sunday’s fine, right? Anyway, get me that list, and I’ll narrow it down for you.”

“Narrow it down how?”

Al waved a breezy hand. “Easy. I’ll cross off anyone  _ I _ wouldn’t deal with. You decide if that means they’ll be dead in twelve years, or. . .” He left the implication hanging in the air.

* * *

By the time the weekend was done, Al was left staring at an unexpectedly long list. Even ignoring the crossed out lines, the names reached to the bottom of the page and wrapped around.

“This many? In twelve years? How prolific. I’ll have my work cut out for me.”

Alastor let out a chuckle. “Don’t worry. Not all of them are murders, and more importantly, not all of  _ those _ have a deal attached. You’ll enjoy it every step of the way.”


	18. Nighttime

It was fascinating how quickly fortunes could change in a year. At school Al had made rivals and acquaintances aplenty, but no friends save the one. Now she was gone, and Al had more friends than ever.

The start of Prohibition was a rocky time. Speakeasies went up then down just as quickly. A few managed to keep themselves and their suppliers hidden, but most were busted or abandoned or moved. Keeping up with the latest passwords took knowing the right people and staying in the loop, and luckily for Al, his job demanded it. They’d never tell him to break the law, and he certainly wasn’t on the clock, but in the back of his mind he was always taking notes. He’d go into work the day after a “party” and jot down which songs people were sick of, which they paid attention to, and which had made them get up and dance.

It was all excuses. Top to bottom, layers and layers of excuses.

Al was doing his job. That was why he kept tabs on as many bars as one person could manage, from the shady to the bright and popular. So everyone assumed. Al played the social butterfly to a T, always up for a dance or a good conversation but rarely with the same people. His presence at any gathering was unexpected but unquestioned, as were his occasional early departures. The man had places to be.

Al loved his job, and he was happy to stay sober, nurse his one drink of the evening, and observe. No one had to know what else he was looking for.

Some days he did get drunk. Some days the mood was right and the liquor was good—or better at least than the usual makeshift swill or the rum and coke he’d grown to loathe. Those were the days when Al decided to relax and settle for the normal sort of fun.

* * *

The crash of rain on the old warehouse roof was deafening, echoing between rows of abandoned shelves and boxes. Even from five feet away, Al could barely hear the upside-down woman’s moans. That was a shame, but a small one. The rain had done its job earlier in covering up her screams.

Al hummed along to her tune as he put pen to paper, copying for the dozenth time a familiar set of words. It had taken him days to rewrite the contract with a new set of conditions. Days of staring at a page, hunting for any possible loopholes, and sealing them shut. Not every demon would be so trusting as his first, nor nearly as trustworthy.

By the time he was done copying, the woman had gone quiet, and Al was well into improvising his own song. He finished writing just as he reached the final refrain and turned around to give her shoulder a twirl. Her body swung by its ankles, the blood from her limp wrists painting swirling ellipses across the concrete. The waste didn’t matter. She’d given more than enough for the circles Al would need.

This time he was better prepared. It would be a long night, he knew, and he didn’t want to spend it flaking layers of dried blood off his hands. This time he’d brought a brush to dip in the bucket and start drawing the first of many pentacles.

But before he touched it to the ground—before he sullied it with warehouse filth—Al looked at the bright red dripping from its tip and painted a broad line across his tongue.

* * *

It was morning by the time Al got back to his apartment, but the benefit of having a normal work schedule was getting to sleep in on the weekends. Or at all in today’s case.

But no matter how tired he was or how long he lay motionless in bed, sleep wouldn’t come.

Images flickered behind his eyes, chased by music and the background static of rain. There was too much to savor of his first proper murder. Too many contracts and names and faces. Each was its own unique flavor of demonic, and too many of them were wearing smirks. It meant nothing, Al knew. Those smirks were just the confidence of demons willing to deal in souls. They’d do anything to make him think they had the upper hand, including act like they already did.

He knew that, but worry would use any crack to creep in, no matter how small.

He should have waited, should have better reviewed the contract, should have spread the deals out instead of sealing them all in the span of one night. If anything went wrong, it could cascade through the entire—no. Nothing would go wrong, and if it did, Alastor would tell him.

Unless he didn’t. It wouldn’t be the first time Alastor let events unfold without warning, and he’d do it again just to watch Al dance. Or, in a worst case scenario, he wouldn’t even get the chance.

He was being ridiculous, Al knew, but he threw his pillow at the light switch anyway. Perhaps it was simply good luck that it worked, perhaps serendipity again, but Alastor looked up from his desk with a more genuine smirk than any of last night’s demons.

“Can’t sleep?”

Al shrugged, burying himself deeper under the covers.

“Don’t bother hiding it. I know exactly what you’re thinking, and there’s no need to worry. You’ll never have to worry again. How could you ever make a mistake when every choice, right or wrong, leads you straight to me?”

Alastor’s claws caught the candlelight as he signed, flashing blood red and fiery orange and filling his words with involuntary menace. It was all so deeply familiar that Al could have laughed. This was his future, his Alastor, and only a truly spectacular mistake on Al’s part could change it. But there was a single, subtle difference, and it took a minute to place it.

Al dug his hands out from under the covers to form a single sign. “Kid.”

Alastor tipped his head in questioning.

“When did you stop calling me kid?”

“After your first time,” Alastor signed. “Congratulations! You’ve graduated from the school of temporally-assisted murder! I have nothing left to teach you.” He gave Al a quick round of applause that transitioned abruptly into sign. “Well, aside from a few recipes and tips for when you die, and oh, your taste in theater will be atrocious until I give you some recommendations. And of course, there’s the occasional piece of advice. Like this one. Look behind you.”

In an instant Al’s exhaustion was gone. He flipped over and came face to face with the curtains he’d drawn to block out the daylight. He looked over his shoulder to see Alastor laughing, and curled up in his sheets with a grumble.

“Oh not right now,” Alastor signed. “You’ll know when. And as long as you’re still human, do try and get some sleep.”

In a surprising show of consideration, Alastor blew out all but one of the candles on his desk, plunging their rooms into near darkness. Besides the afterlight, all Al could see was the candle’s faint flickering and the subtle glow of Alastor’s eyes as he peered at letters through his monocle.

For a while Al wondered what would happen if he fell asleep. Would that light go out too? Did afterlight need consciousness, or would just his presence be enough? And if it was, then would Alastor still see him? He’d never learned the details on how exactly that magic worked.

For a while Al wondered, but it wasn’t long before the day caught up to him. He drifted off into sleep with Alastor’s words in his head. He’d never need to worry. Never again.

* * *

It took almost a week of carefully following Alastor’s advice, but finally he saw it. A face that was too familiar. A shadow that followed too closely to be coincidence. A man who Al could catch only glimpses of in the corners of his eye, who walked too softly to hear even as he followed Al down a dark alley in the dead of night.


	19. Investigation

“Your name.”

Perhaps the knife at his throat was too much. The man’s face went bone white, and he threw his hands in the air and pulled back as far as the wall would allow. Words flew from his mouth almost too fast to catch.

“John Pierce, private eye. Don’t kill me. They know where I am.”

Private eye? Al’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s ‘they?’”

“My wife and my employers. Your girl’s parents. Anything happens to me, and they’ll go straight to the cops. Now let me go, and you’ll never see me again. I don’t care if you did it or not, this shit’s not worth the hazard pay.”

Al didn’t release him, but he did pull the blade away from his skin and the menace out of his smile. Its target had shifted, and it settled deep in his bones for later. “How long have you been following me?” he said.

“A month and a bit, off and on. I’ve got a life, and I’m not gonna stand around getting rained on in case you go out for a pint. Saw you sneaking around a few times, but hell, who doesn’t these days? Drinking ain’t a crime, and I’m sure as hell not gonna snitch on the ones selling—”

Al released him, and the man immediately dashed to the side and started backing away down the alley. “If I see you—,” Al started, and the man’s hat almost flew off from how fast he shook his head.

“You damn well won’t! Just try not to kill the next guy ‘cause I swear they’ll hire someone else when I quit. Those people are nuts! Mad with grief, and goddamn but they’re not the only ones!”

* * *

Al was expecting consequences, and they came the next day in the form of a knock on his door, barely a minute after he got home from work.

“Detective Connor Williams, New Orleans Police Department,” his guest announced.

“Is this about last night? You’re not arresting me.” The last half wasn’t a question. The detective had come on his own, on what looked more like a courtesy call than official business. He had his uniform on, but an overcoat hung across one of his shoulders.

Connor looked around, then asked, “May I come in?” It was only after Al closed the door behind him that he answered. “Yes and no. Pierce declined to press assault charges. Reasonable man. Seeing as he was stalking the friend of a recent murder victim, it’s as clear a self-defense case as any I’ve seen. That still leaves the matter of why you were out at night.”

Ah. Well it certainly wouldn’t do to admit that Al’s entire goal had been cornering his stalker. It didn’t mix well with the self-defense justification, but the question meant there had to be another reason for this visit. “Is all this really necessary if he’s not pressing charges? Unless. . . I thought I wasn’t a suspect in Gloria’s case.”

The detective shook his head. “You aren’t. Not officially, and not for murder. Conspiracy to murder, though. . .” Then he let out a sigh. “Her parents are still accusing you, and we can’t just dismiss them. It’s not enough for probable cause, but it is enough to question why you’re so often out at night.”

“You know my job?” Al asked, and the detective nodded. “Then you know that I keep up with the trends. Meet people, go to parties. Those tend to be after dark.”

He raised a brow. “Last night you were out past midnight. According to the investigator’s notes, it wasn’t the first time.”

It would’ve been easy to lie, but dealmaking was a subtle art. The best deceptions were rooted in absolute truth, and Al’s smile shrank to something small and distant. “Ever since Gloria was. . . Sometimes I can’t sleep at night. Going out and getting some fresh air helps.”

There was sympathy in the detective’s eyes, but he kept his expression stern. “Gloria’s isn’t the only killer out there. If you’re not careful, you’ll—“

“What? Get accused of another murder? Don’t tell me it’s not safe. I can handle myself, and you know it.” Al’s high school tendency to get in fights had been brought up in Gloria’s case, even though her killer had used a gun. It had to be her parents’ influence again, and Al made another note on his mental balance sheet.

It was a risk to bring it up himself—to associate himself with his own crimes—but for a moment it paid off. A crack ran through the detective’s professional mask. “No, I only—” Then he shook his head. “Just try to keep to the main streets. The city’s not the same as it was a couple years ago, between the bootleggers and the devil worshipers. . .”

He trailed off to give Al an assessing look, and Al’s heart skipped a beat.

He knew. He had to know, and Al had given him the last dots to connect. The nearest knife was in the kitchen, too far to grab before the detective reached his gun. Al’s only chance was to feign ignorance until he let down his guard. “Devil worshipers?”

The detective blinked and broke eye contact. When he looked back he’d forced his collected facade back into place. “Forget I said that. The less you know about them, the better. Unless. . .” That assessing look was back, but this time he finished the thought. “Would you be willing to act as a consultant? You may have some insight on this case, and it’d do wonders for your reputation at the precinct. Come by on Saturday and ask for me. I’ve taken up enough of your evening already.”

* * *

The moment he closed his front door, Al flipped on his afterlight.

“I’ve been asked to consult on my own case.”

Alastor’s laugh was bright and gleeful and swept Al’s nerves away like so much dust. “It’s a brilliant joke, don’t you think? The irony really is divine. Absolutely transcendent. Of all the people dear Connor could have asked. . .” He grinned at Al and tilted his head, and Al could have stood there forever, just basking in the spotlight of Alastor’s delight.

“How close should I get?”

“As close as you want.” Then, for a moment, a touch of exasperation crept into Alastor’s smile. “Though you’ll want to ignore your first impression.”

* * *

Connor’s desk at the precinct was a mess, but somehow Al didn’t think that was what he was meant to ignore. Within the clutter was an incomprehensible order, and the man pulled a page from the middle of a stack the moment Al sat down.

“Do you recognize this symbol?” he asked.

Al certainly did. “A pentagram.”

“And you know its uses?”

Al shrugged. “Rituals. Devil worship, like you said. It was at the crime scene?”

“What sort of rituals?”

Connor fixed Al with a pointed look, his hands hovering over a typewriter ready to take notes, and Al finally understood. All of this was his own doing. If he’d been less curt the first time he’d talked to the police, none of this would have happened. He could have nipped all their assumptions in the bud, or at least tried. The odds weren’t great of them listening while he was still a suspect.

“I told this to Gloria, and it looks like I’ll be saying it for the rest of my life. Voodoo is not devil worship. They’re as far apart as Heaven and Hell. Exactly as far, even.”


	20. Audacity

To his credit, Connor listened well. Better than Gloria, and not just in the obvious literal sense. He’d immediately sensed Al’s exasperation—not that Al had bothered hiding it—but he hadn’t dropped the topic. No, he’d done one better, asking Al to write out a quick primer on voodoo to avoid any further misunderstandings.

Better yet, he was the type to enjoy a bit of background chatter while he worked, and Al was more than happy to provide it. Their corner of the office soon turned into a little island of sound. Al clicked away on a typewriter and made idle small talk while workplace noise washed up on the shore.

At least until a shriek pierced through the calm.

“What is  _ he _ doing here?”

It was a voice Al hadn’t heard in years and yet more proof that he’d changed. Where once he might have been cautious, Alastor’s assurance let him throw it to the wind. Gloria’s mother was no future-sensing soldier-turned-murderer, and she’d earned from him a smile that was thin and frosty with suppressed rage.

“Hello!” he wanted to say. “Just helping my new friend with an investigation! Thank you kindly for the chance to meet him! I even got to have some fun terrorizing an unlucky private eye, but I’d rather not have to deal with any more would-be stalkers if it’s all the same to you!”

Before Al could stand, though, and before she could close the distance, a hand clamped down on his shoulder and another around the woman's wrist. Al turned his head to face Connor, and what each of them saw gave the other pause. On Connor’s face was calm, and not the forced, paper-thin sort that people feigned to deescalate arguments. It was the calm of watching a plan come together exactly as expected.

Al’s face, meanwhile, flipped through more emotions than he could be bothered to disguise. Anger, surprise, doubt, intrigue, and finally a simmering displeasure.

“You knew this would happen,” he hissed.

It was Connor’s turn to be surprised, but he didn’t deny it. From across the room came shouting, both high pitched and a lower voice that Al identified as Gloria’s father, followed by the conciliatory but firm tone of officers herding them into a side office. Al forced himself to ignore the noise as he turned back to the typewriter. Alastor had said to get as close as he wanted, and a detective would certainly be more fun than a grief-struck couple. No matter how annoying they were.

* * *

Al stayed at the precinct longer than he’d planned, rounding out his primer with helpful notes and sketches and waiting for Connor to finish his work. It was all so he could guide him down a detour on their way home. Al stopped in front of a nondescript door, and it was only then that Connor connected the dots.

“Al. This is a bar.”

“Sure is.”

“And I’m a detective.”

Al looked his uniform up and down. “You don’t say.”

That earned him a glare. “I’m sure you see the conflict of interests.”

Al shook his head and gave his most disarming smile. “Nope! You work homicides, not trafficking, and I’ve seen plenty of cops in places just like this.”

“Disregarding that those aren’t as unrelated as you seem to think, Al. . .” He paused and let out a sigh. “I’m not your friend.”

“Not yet,” Al said, “but I do have questions for you, and questions pair well with a good drink.”

“How about dinner instead.”

“A marvelous idea! This place serves the best hamburgers.” And before Connor could complain, Al gave the door a sharp rap. It took some convincing, but a list of the last three passwords and a furtive whisper of, “The guy catches murderers, not smugglers, and he needs a drink after the day he’s had,” was enough to get them in. Al ordered a pair of burgers and whiskey cocktails before being shooed to a far corner lest Connor’s uniform scare the clientèle.

Al sipped at his drink while Connor pushed the second old fashioned across the table with a pointed look. “About the questions you were going to ask. I wasn’t sure if the parents were going to come in today, but they do most Saturdays. To check up on the investigation.”

Al waved a dismissive hand and slid the drink back. “I can guess the rest. You wanted us to put on a show. Me the helpful, misunderstood victim of a false accusation. Them the hysterical ones wasting the police’s time and distracting you from solvable cases.”

“We’ll find—“

“You won’t. It’s been months.”

The two looked down at their drinks in a moment of silence. Al took another sip, and Connor wrapped a hand around his glass before he remembered where he was.

“Anyway, thanks,” Al said. “For making me look like the sane one. I’d rather the next detective who comes knocking not think I’m guilty from the get-go.”

It broke the silence perfectly. When Al looked up, it was to a familiar exasperation, one he’d long since learned was in his nature to provoke. “You’re already assuming you’ll have more detectives showing up at your door?”

“If I keep having to fend off stalkers in the dead of night, then yes. I can’t help but anticipate a misunderstanding or two.”

Connor raised his glass as if presenting evidence. “Is this really so important to your job? Late night parties and drinking? There’s nothing good that comes of—“

“Oh please,” Al chuckled. “You’re not one of those teetotalers, are you? Is that why you think we can’t be friends?”

Connor glared across the table. “No. We can’t be friends because you’re involved in a criminal investigation.”

“Over two months ago, and only thanks to ignorance and false allegations, both of which you helped clear up today! It’s fine to be biased when you’re using me as a pawn in office politics, but it’s down to the letter of the rules when it comes to friendship, is that it?”

“I’m not biased.”

Al shrugged. “Call it what you want, but you do like me. Why else would you ask me to help with your other case, the one with the Satanists? I could’ve easily been a suspect, at least while you still thought voodoo was devil worship.”

“True, but you’re not the sort that joins a cult.”

Now that was interesting. For a detective, Connor was far too unaccustomed to being on the business end of an interrogation. He’d been leaning forward, getting defensive, and now he’d finally let slip an interesting tidbit.

“Oh? You never said it was a cult.”

Connor blinked, looked away, and raised the glass to his lips in a distracted attempt to do something with his hands. “Forget I said that. It’s confidential,” he said and took a sip.

* * *

It wasn’t often that Alastor talked about his own life in Hell. Al could get the gist of it through observation, but Alastor never let slip more than minor details.

“You’ll thank me later,” he said. “It’s more fun not knowing what’s around the corner.”

It was why Al was often the first to talk when he flipped on his afterlight. He’d give the context for their chat, and Alastor would run with it. Nowadays though, it almost felt like Al was keeping up.

He understood now how it felt. The bright red flashes of bloodthirst and murderlust. The thrill of power—of having all eyes on him and everyone’s puppet strings leading back to his fingers. The joy of performance. It was a bond they shared, and Al knew it was the reason Alastor had finally stopped calling him kid.

But it wasn’t enough.

“You’re not me. Not yet.”

That night Alastor spoke first, and though his smile was as wide as ever, his signs were cold and sharp. The next words soothed the blow, but Al still flinched like he’d been slapped.

“It’s a very well crafted act, don’t get me wrong, but you’re trying too hard and not hard enough. Think back. Would you have done any of what you did today without my advice? You’re playing perfectly by the script, but remember, I don’t have afterlight to guide me.”

Then what was he complaining about? Why give that advice if it was going to be such a problem? Inevitability? Some long-term manipulation to force Al down the right path?

Puzzle pieces. It was always more puzzle pieces, and just when Al thought the balance had changed. It had, he knew. The rest of the conversation slipped readily into their new normal. It wasn’t just Alastor reminiscing anymore. He trusted Al to tell the story of his evening and played the perfect audience, ooh-ing and ahh-ing and laughing at all the right times. He gave no sign of noticing anything wrong with today’s performance, but Al knew he could see it.

Al knew because he could feel the tension in his own hands, the forced grace behind every second-guessed sign and gesture. Trying too hard but not enough? One day the words would make sense because one day it’d be him signing them. Today though, all he could do was wonder how he could possibly be at once more and less himself.


	21. Lessons

It was a mistake. Al was back in the same bar as the night before. The same booth even. Empty glasses stood in a row in front of him. Music was playing, and Al had been watching the dancers for most of the evening—more habit than anything—but for a moment he looked away and closed his eyes. A moment became a few, and Al raised a hand to his mouth to stifle a yawn. His head tipped back, a sigh breezed past his lips, and his fingers wandered up to his closed eyes. How curious. It only took a bit of numbness for them to feel like a stranger’s. Like a corpse, still barely warm from—

“So, got dumped by your cop friend?” Someone was across the table from him, but Al didn’t move except to lever his eyes half-open. Something about it—maybe Al’s eyes lidded between his fingers, probably just his ever-present smile—convinced the man to stay. “Saw you arguing last night. Good riddance, if you ask me. Pretty thing like you deserves better than a stick in the mud.”

Ah. “Not interested.” Al let his eyes slide closed again.

“Now don’t be like that. There’s not many of our sort around here. Let me buy you a drink.” He was back minutes later, sidling onto the bench next to Al, pressing against his side and nudging a glass into his hand. “A dark ‘n stormy.”

Al took a long sip, tuning out the rest of what was said. Somewhere in the background he could hear himself replying, making casual, slightly slurred conversation. He’d be hard-pressed to remember a word.

The cocktail was rum. Even mixed with something unfamiliar, it would’ve soured his mood if it hadn’t already been bitter to the core. Instead it brought something different. Something sharp and accentuated by the arm wrapping around his shoulders. Al pushed it away, but it wrapped around his waist instead. Al laughed, and the next thing he knew he was home, and that same arm was pushing him against a wall. There was a knife in his pocket, then his hand, then a chest, and a passing nod to bloodstains was the last thought to cross his mind before there was nothing.

* * *

Al woke the next morning to sunlight knifing through his bedroom window, and the sight in his living room did nothing for his headache. He pulled up a chair, nursed a glass of water, and fought to not throw up. The last thing he needed was more of a mess.

He remembered wanting something to catch the blood, to keep it from seeping into his floor. He’d searched for a tarp, found his raincoat instead. It did a passable job. Only a few trickles had made it off and dried in thin brown lines between his floorboards. At least he’d had the sense to keep the knife in the wound.

His head throbbed just thinking of the cleanup. Of dragging around a couple hundred pounds’ worth of dead weight and what? What was he supposed to do with it? He’d never had to dispose of a body before, at least not a human one.

Alastor would know, and Al almost reached for the light switch before he caught himself. Alastor would know, but his words were still echoing through Al’s head. He didn’t have afterlight to guide him. He didn’t need it. Then neither would Al.

He’d read what to do with a body in stories that Gloria recommended and ones that she wrote. Corpses could be butchered or burned or dissolved in lye or weighed down and cast into water. None of it was simple, and none of it could be done before he had to leave for work.

The thought sent a dozen more needles stabbing through his head. He had work. It was Monday. He’d have to get ready, have to leave soon if he wanted to make it on foot. He wouldn’t manage twenty feet on the trolley, not with bile still trying to crawl its way up his throat. And he could use the fresh air.

Besides, there was nothing he could do by day. There’d be too many watching eyes. It’d be better to go to work, act natural, and wait until nightfall. He just had to force himself forward, one step at a time. He’d keep making decisions, and Alastor’s existence would ensure they’d be right. It would all work out in the end. It was always meant to.

* * *

For a while Al sat in the car, waiting for his headache to subside. It was several minutes until he couldn’t see his own heartbeat in flashes of dull red pain. He took a deep breath and listened to the sounds of the midnight swamp returning after he’d so rudely disturbed them. The crickets were first and loudest, but soon enough Al picked up the croak of frogs and the hoot of a distant owl. Nothing human besides his own breathing, but who else would be so far out of town this late at night?

Admittedly Al could think of a few reasons. Recent news of an injured uncle up in Baton Rouge, for one. It was the excuse Al gave when his coworkers inevitably asked what was wrong. Then, suddenly bright-eyed and hopeful, he’d asked to borrow a car. They couldn’t bring themselves to say no.

Moving the body was harder. Al had spent all evening weighing the costs of dragging it to his bathtub to cut the limbs off. It’d be easier to move in the long run, but there’d be blood and mess, and a long day at work hadn’t done a thing for his headache.

Besides, Al knew he wouldn’t get caught. It wasn’t in his future. Gloria’s parents wouldn’t have hired a new private eye yet, and Al made a quick check for unwary passerby before he dragged the tarp-wrapped body down a staircase, out a back door, through an alley, and into the back seat of the car. Before anybody could look too closely, he’d started the engine and driven until every bump in the road felt like an ice pick in his skull.

Al only had the one bulb for his flashlight, so he worked by the gibbous moon and the dull glow of afterlight. It took only a minute to untie the ropes and unwrap the body, much longer to find enough stones to weigh it down. Then there was the problem of moving it with the added weight. In the end, Al tied a rope around its feet, crossed to the other side of the pond—nearly tripping into it in the darkness—and heaved until it was finally submerged. He cut the rope, threw the end in after it, and finally it was done.

Al sat back in the car and closed his eyes, wanting nothing more than to scowl. He still had a long drive to go and an early alarm to set so he could return the car. It physically hurt to keep smiling, but a few minutes later Al forced his eyes back open and nearly jumped out of his skin.

A bright red gaze stared at him from the side mirror, and it took a moment to pull his hand from his pocket and remember he was alone. Or never truly alone anyway, but in only the company of himself.

“Have you learned your lesson yet?” Alastor signed, arching his brows like he already knew the answer, but of course he did.

“I need to move again,” Al replied. “It’s almost as much a pain to get away with murder in an apartment as it would’ve been in Father’s house.”

Alastor chuckled and rolled his eyes, and Al turned off the flashlight. A tiny car mirror was no place for a conversation, and there was a sinking feeling in his gut that had nothing to do with alcohol. He’d learned plenty of lessons, but none of them was the right one. Of that he was sure.

* * *

Moving out of the city center was a slow process. It took months to find the right place and take out a mortgage. Months to work out the logistics and buy a car so he could drive to work. What all that time gave him, though, was a chance to save up and plan.

His new home was a small, private one at the end of a dead-end road, nearly hidden from view by low trees and tall bushes. A long mirror was the first piece of furniture Al brought in, then a bed, then all the kitchen necessities. Tables, chairs, cookware, a new combination range for when the city extended gas lines, and finally a conspicuously empty space for when Al could afford a refrigerator. For now, the icebox next to the shed would have to do.

He’d invite Mother and Father eventually after he was properly settled in. As before, Al’s first guest would be a friend. His first dinner at home would be for two.

Connor only managed a quick look around before he frowned. “Are you sure you’ll be okay out here by yourself? I know what I’m talking about, and if I had to pick a place to murder someone. . .”

Al just laughed and waved him through the front door, but Connor had long since gotten used to Al’s morbid sense of humor. A coping mechanism, he called it.

“I’ll be just fine. After the year I’ve had, I could do with a good bit of privacy.”

“Are they still. . .?”

Connor trailed off, but Al answered the question with a long, exhausted stare. “Not anymore, I hope. No one will follow me here, and if they do, at least I’ll know. If they’re a private eye, they won’t bother sticking around after they’ve been made. And if they’re a murderer, well, maybe they’ll change their mind when they smell what I have in the oven. You’re going to love it.”


	22. Consideration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for tags coming into play in the last scene.

It took months to move out of the city, and Al spent those months thinking and planning. The first week was restless, all frayed nerves and uncertainty and loss of sleep. Scattered memories bubbled to the surface as Al scrubbed blood from his floorboards and out of his coat.

There were hazy memories blurred by alcohol. Untoward advances, unwanted contact, and graceless, stomach-turning vulgarity. There was a creeping disgust that built and built until they’d been alone in his apartment, then a flood of satisfaction.

But what was the satisfaction from? Simple relief at ridding himself of a nuisance and finding an out for his bloodlust? Something more noble? The man had been unsightly, and now the world would never have to tolerate him again.

Maybe it was just a fragile hope that he’d come a step closer to Alastor. That never again would his demon have reason to look at him with hidden disdain or sign to him such hurtful words.

* * *

The second week was tense. Minutes dragged by, catching on a need to reach into his pocket, wrap his hand around the handle of a knife, and give it a new home. He’d do it properly this time—no alcohol to fog his mind and dull his senses. He’d do it right and confirm what he’d felt, and this time he wouldn’t be hasty.

Al announced his relocation plans to his parents on visits, to his colleagues at work, and to Connor over dinner. They were at a proper restaurant this time, and Al spent the whole meal scanning Connor’s words and face and posture for clues. He found none. No suspicion, and not even the usual stress of a new body and a new case.

Al kept his ear to the ground but heard no rumors of murder, no signs that his victim’s disappearance could lead back to him. He hadn’t expected any. The afterlight still showed his future—his Alastor—and that was proof enough that he’d made no mistakes. It was all meant to be, but the thought of a repeat made his head throb in sympathy for his past self.

Mistakes or not, afterlight wasn’t a perfect safety net. If he stayed on his path, he wouldn’t die or get caught, but he could still suffer and still feel pain. Actions had consequences, as he should’ve already had plenty of reason to learn.

* * *

“You called it serendipity,” Al signed one day. “You said that as a demon-speaker I’d have causality working for me. Where are the limits?”

Ever since the first battle, Al had felt invincible. He’d cozied up to a detective, bold as he pleased, and found a friend and a source of information.

Then, just a day later, he’d gone out drinking and been rewarded with a hangover at work, a corpse in his living room, and a miserable trainwreck of a day. Were his riskiest schemes destined to succeed because the only way they could fail was catastrophically? Did the world find ways to balance itself anyway, to punish him not for his crimes—that was Hell’s job—but for his hubris?

Alastor didn’t answer the question, but Al hadn’t expected him to. Instead he asked one of his own.

“Do you believe in coincidence?”

Al’s first thought was, “Of course,” but Alastor wouldn’t have bothered asking if that was all there was to it. Al thought for a few seconds, then answered, “No. In a stable time loop, coincidences don’t exist. Even if what happens to me seems unlikely, it has to happen. Causality demands it because it already happened to you.”

Alastor tapped a finger to his chin in feigned consideration. “Oh? I wonder. Maybe it’s coincidence that they exist at all. A million unlikely chances add up to a future so weighty that it turns back on itself. So is it serendipity that creates time loops or time loops that cause serendipity? Now there’s a real chicken and egg problem. . .”

He segued into a secondhand anecdote, and Al nodded along while his own thoughts drifted. Alastor hadn’t said he was wrong, but he was the type to point out mistakes only after the fact. He’d have much more fun watching people blunder around, tripping over flaws in their fundamental assumptions. Even for Al’s questions, he’d sooner detour down a pseudo-philosophical tangent than answer honestly.

“How do you do it?” Al interrupted. “How do you decide what to do without afterlight?” How did he make choices without the assurance that they’d be right? That was the crux of it all, the biggest difference between him and Al.

Alastor abandoned his story without a second thought. “Why, the same way you’ll learn to with it!”

Maybe anyone who spent too long around Alastor was destined to become an excellent dealmaker. The demon spoke in non-answers as if they were his mother tongue, but Al had long since learned to translate. He nodded and signed, “I think I finally learned my lesson.”

* * *

In retrospect it was simple. The very first thing he’d learned about causality was its definition. Cause and effect. Choices and consequences. Al wasn’t immune. Far from it.

He could be as bold as he wanted and never fear for his life or freedom, but he wouldn’t be in control, and if he wasn’t in control he wouldn’t be Alastor. He’d gotten away with it for now, but at this rate he’d stumble off the path and realize too late that he’d thrown away his safety net. He might as well put a gun to his head, keep pulling the trigger, and expect it to misfire every time.

There were still months until Al moved, and in that time his acquaintances watched his restlessness turn to excitement, thinking they knew the cause. It wasn’t his move and it wasn’t his fictitious uncle’s recovery. He’d simply realized that there was no need to wait to make his next deal. There was no reason to fear, but nor would he be careless. This time he’d have a plan.

The contract was a simple one. The signee would forfeit their soul to a demon to do with as they pleased, under one condition. Their safety would be guaranteed until at least April 14, 1933. Any further concessions could be negotiated with Al at the time.

The location was even easier. The woman led Al straight to her own home, taking pains to keep their rendezvous a secret. How kind of her. If only she’d shown the same consideration to her husband or to the patrons of the speakeasy where she’d first caught Al’s eye.

But no. She took her ring off as she came in, all except the few times she forgot. Even worse, she’d been unforgivably rude. Al had long since forgotten her original complaint, but she’d thrown her glass to the ground before screeching it at the bartender. The room went still and the band paused their playing as shattered glass and spilled alcohol covered the dance floor. All eyes turned to the woman, but all she did with her self-created stage was continue to berate the staff.

What a waste. At the very least she could have put on a show worth seeing. More than the adultery, more than the discourtesy, that artlessness made her truly contemptible. Al could fix that though. He could make her disappear. She’d make an excellent corpse and a lovely shadow.

It took a while for the pieces to fall into place. The woman’s husband was out of town, Al’s stalker had gone home for the night, and their eyes met from across the room. They shared a drink but just the one before she drove them home, and then the fun finally began. Al had waited so long. Excitement threw off his delivery, even after the weeks he’d spent honing his sales pitch.

Al took off her gag, and she didn’t scream. He’d made sure she knew the consequences of that. “Go fuck yourself,” she gasped between sobs, and Al let out a sigh.

Such a shame, but it was a learning experience. Next time he’d remember to bring up the Cleanse from the start. It was so easy to forget that others didn’t know the details. He’d play up the risk of permanent death and the safety they’d have if they accepted his deal. He’d guarantee they would never be killed by an angel.

But that could wait ‘til next time. Today’s show was over. All that remained was to set the stage for his dear, newest friend. A hand over the woman’s mouth muffled her scream and forced her chin down, the better to cut through her carotid.

That was one last benefit to months of preparation. He’d found time to study anatomy and a bit of butchery, and both came in handy now. The woman went limp, and Al worked quickly. A set of cuts down her center and around her shoulders let him peel back skin and muscle. Cracking her ribs was harder than he’d expected, but it wasn’t long until Al could see her heart. A few more cuts and it was free, and Al tossed it in the air, flinching as blood sprayed at him then letting out a laugh. He’d deserved that. It wasn’t polite to play with his food.

Heart wasn’t the ideal cut, but oddly fitting for his first. Better yet, it would fit the scene he was crafting. Blood pooled in the woman’s chest like a wonderfully convenient paint well, and Al dipped in a gloved finger. He’d be drawing a bigger circle than usual, wide enough to lay her spread-eagle across the pentagram. A perfect sacrifice if Al hadn’t intentionally botched the runes.

He’d have to plan another dinner with Connor in a few days. He’d take in the detective’s pinched eyes and the tense set of his shoulders and offer to go for drinks instead. Maybe Connor would accept. Maybe Al would manage to wheedle out a few secrets under the guise of concern.

Al whistled while he worked, and layers upon layers of satisfaction settled deep in his bones.


	23. Becoming

“Found a new girlfriend?”

Al shot a confused look at his manager and watched him backpedal immediately.

“Sorry. No need to rush. You can take as much time as you need. I just thought. . . you’ve been looking happier lately, so maybe. . . never mind.”

Al chuckled and diffused the tension with a quiet, “Thanks.” He put on another song for review, and both of them took it as an excuse to silently consult their notes. By the time it was over, they were back to business as usual.

* * *

Al’s manager wasn’t the only one to notice the difference, and he was right to. Al’s smile sat more naturally on his face nowadays, with an ease that was more genuine than habitual. People took that to mean he’d finally recovered from Gloria’s death. All it had taken was time and a change of surroundings. He’d finally left the apartment where they’d used to spend time together, where he’d been accused of murdering her.

They were all wrong. It had been the better part of a year, but time only served to make them forget what his smile used to look like. Of course they’d assume the change was a return to form and not the awakening it was.

And Al did feel more awake, like he’d peeled off thick layers of stage makeup and opened his eyes without the weight pressing down on his eyelids. Like his skin was finally his own. He could climb onto the roof of his house and truly feel every gust of the evening breeze as it pulled at his clothes and curled around his outstretched fingers. The chill sent goosebumps up his arms.

In the distance the sun was setting, painting the horizon red like Hell itself warring with the lingering blue of Heaven. Al watched orange light and black silhouettes dance across the swamp and held out his hands to catch the glow on his blood-red palms.

City lights were starting to twinkle on, but Al’s dinner plans were already set.

* * *

There were upsides to bringing people back to his shed. Proximity was the most obvious, but the best was that he didn’t need to worry about fingerprints. No layers of cloth dulled the feeling of his knife in his hands or the flow of blood.

The downside was how uninspiring a stage it made. The walls were bare wood. A single bulb dangled by a wire from the ceiling. The only distinguishing features were a wide butcher block counter, an array of tools on the wall, and a bloodstained pentagram painted in the corner. But it was a poor workman who blamed his tools and a poor performer who couldn’t make any stage his own.

“A falling knife has no handle,” Mother once said, but he’d practiced enough to prove her wrong, enough that he could twirl it absentmindedly in his fingers while he talked. It gleamed as it followed like an extension of his arm, like the claws he’d one day have. Al leaned back against the counter, flipping it to his right hand and tapping the point to his temple as he finished up his speech. He felt it stick with spots of drying blood.

“You should be grateful I’m even making an offer after what you did today! Normally I couldn’t stand the thought of sharing a plane of existence with someone so undeserving of it. It’s people like you who make life miserable, but. . .” Al sighed and gave a  _ what can be done _ shrug. “A soul’s a soul. I’m afraid I’ll have to kill you here—no way around it—but in Hell, you have something to offer me that’s worth putting up with your presence. I’m giving you one chance. Take the deal, or I will hunt you down and leave you for the executioners. What do you say?”

The knife spun through the air, and Al snatched it with his left hand before tucking it behind his back. His right hand he held out as if the man’s wrists weren’t tied to a beam.

“I say you’re fucking insane, you—!”

“Ah-ah-ah. Let’s try that one more time with something less open-ended.” Al let the knife peek out from behind his back, and the man flinched. “Deal or no deal? I’ll even throw in a quick death, but say anything other than, ’yes,’ and I’ll take it as a no.”

Defiance fought to keep its grip on the man’s features, but one last look at Al—at his fingers eagerly tapping along the knife handle—and its claws lost their purchase. He sagged in his bindings and breathed a quiet, “Yes.”

Al’s hand gripped his knife, but he laid it down on the table with a chuckle. The man stayed silent, whether out of resignation or fear that Al would count it as a no, and Al’s thoughts drifted as he went about the familiar steps of drawing the summoning circle.

What a strange emotion fear was. Al wondered about it sometimes. How would it feel to go to sleep on the eve of his death day, knowing it was his last night on Earth? What would he say to Alastor, knowing the next time he saw him would be in a normal, plainly-lit mirror? Sometimes he felt a small, animal twisting in his gut that begged him to shove the thought aside, but it was nowhere near enough to sell his soul over.

Maybe death was something he’d have to see for himself to understand. After all, it took standing on the precipice for his newest victim to reconsider and save himself from true erasure.

Maybe it was something else, more than simple fear of death. The man was, after all, already Hell-bound. Unsightly as he was, maybe somewhere in there he could appreciate a good show. That wonder at a darkly beautiful sight—the joy of getting to be a part of it for years and years to come—was more than enough to outweigh the cost of a soul. Al had all but formally sold his own to it years ago. Nothing else could come close.

* * *

After a long night on the town Al liked to hang up his coat by the door and twirl down the hall into his bedroom, the night's music still echoing through his head. His hand flicked a switch as he passed, and he stopped at the center of a room filled with the red light of Hell.

“Someone had a good night,” Alastor signed.

“I met someone at the theater. We had a very nice chat about costume design.”

“And you didn’t bring her home with you?”

The question was so layered with irony that for a minute Al could only laugh. First was the “her,” so Alastor had to know exactly who he was talking about. He’d also know that her oh so interesting conversation was punctuated by not so subtle flirting. Al had no desire to “bring her home” in that sense, and it’d end badly even if he did.

Al closed his eyes, shook his head, and turned away from the mirror. When he looked back up he was facing another, but in this room it was hard to look anywhere without getting at least a glimpse of his reflection.

“You know just as well as I do that it wouldn’t work out,” Al signed. “My icebox is full.”

Alastor’s eyes narrowed even as his grin widened to something terrifying. “I know, but don’t you see? She could have been the perfect solution to that pesky little problem.”


	24. Masks

Now more than ever people lived their lives in the light. They woke up to the sun, worked in their brightly lit factories, and spent their evening strolls basking in the glow of streetlights and storefronts. Flashing lights and liquid-fire neon lit the fashionable parts of town, the places people stayed until the party was over and the owners were threatening to boot them out the door.

It was then, as the city slept, the music died, and the blinking lights behind them faded away, that people remembered what it meant to fear the dark. Danger lurked in the shadows. Monsters and men with knives and guns and demons in their reflections.

It was then that Al stepped in, odd but ever-benevolent and oh, so helpful. Always willing to offer a ride or a shoulder if they lived close by. Sometimes it was a gal who’d been dumped and left in the lurch. Sometimes a man so drunk he could hardly walk straight, let alone drive. All of them made it home safely. There were witnesses after all, and Al had a reputation to keep.

And if Al smiled and laughed the whole way, then that was just another of his idiosyncrasies and a pleasant one at that. His light kept the darkness at bay.

None of them could see the joke. The monsters in the dark were simple creatures content with simple victories. They were the ones you could run from, the ones you could fight. Al would know. He’d been there once, and it left him wanting.

Even primitive man could run down his prey, all grunts and brute strength. But man had evolved. He created tools to kill silently and from a distance, before his victims ever saw him. He created society, the greatest tool of all, so that he’d never have to stalk. His prey would come to him.

The deadliest monsters didn’t need to hide. They were invited, into homes and into lives. They lived in daylight and nightlife, glowing just as bright as anyone. They drew people to them like the Pied Piper. Like lambs to the slaughter.

* * *

Alastor had said it himself. He didn’t have afterlight. He didn’t have its layers of reassurance. All he had was plain old self-assurance and lessons learned from playing dangerous games over a safety net.

“Do you ever see her? In the afterlight?” Connor asked quietly one evening, after conversation had turned to Al’s continued bachelorhood and trailed off from there.

It would have been easy to lie, easy to spin some long yarn about love and loyalty and seeing himself happy with Gloria in Heaven. That was boring, though, and in two years of friendship, he’d yet to tell Connor a single lie. If Al was to be a dealmaker, he could do better than break the streak here. He could stretch the truth far beyond the point where a lesser hand would snap it.

Al sighed and looked up to the ceiling. “I used to think I might, but I know better now. Didn’t you ever wonder why I used to carry a knife around? Why the first thing I did when I realized someone was following me wasn’t call the police but put a knife to his throat?”

“Self-defense,” Connor said automatically. Uncertainly. Al shook his head.

“After Gloria died I used to think—used to hope even—that her killer might look for me too. To try and finish the job. I wanted him to. It’s crazy, isn’t it? He had a gun, and all I had was a knife, but if I had the chance I would’ve done it. I’d have killed him for what he did. Guess God doesn’t want would-be murderers in Heaven.”

Al finished up with a dark chuckle and folded his hands across the table, forcing them still as if to hide anxiety and not excitement. He made no secret of searching Connor’s face for reactions, and what he found there wasn’t judgment. It was cautious sympathy.

“But you didn’t find him, did you?”

Al scoffed. “You think I could after the police didn’t? There’s not much I could do besides make myself bait and try to lure him out.”

“Then there’s still a chance. You can still—“

“Let me guess. Repent? Ha! For what? Wanting him in the ground? I still do. I’d put him there myself, but it’s too late. There’s no way I’ll find him now. Besides, the life I see’s not a bad one, all things considered.”

The caution was gone from Connor’s sympathy, but still he hesitated. Al stayed silent, waiting, and a minute later Connor finally spoke. “Is that really what she’d want?”

Al couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled out, but after a few seconds, he trailed off and didn’t speak. Connor seemed to take that as answer enough.

It was a good joke. Unintentional but hilarious. Connor didn’t know what Gloria wanted. He didn’t know her. Nobody knew her but Al.

But unless she was dead—well and truly gone forever—why hadn’t she found him? Or Alastor rather, but nowadays Al felt closer to the demon than to himself from three years ago. Had he changed so much?

Was it a repeat of their only real argument, all that time ago? Was it not just death but murder and torture and cannibalism that scared her when they were more than words? Al had learned a few details about Alastor’s arrival in Hell since then. The slaughters and the broadcasts. Had Gloria taken them as a reason to run not toward him but as far away as she could?

It might have been less disappointing to think she’d died.

* * *

It would almost certainly be impossible to find another Gloria, another friend who wouldn’t run screaming the moment they learned about Al’s schemes. This was Earth, after all. In Hell, demons could flaunt their inhumanity with pride. Here everyone wore human faces and human masks to match, and to take them off would be social suicide.

It was the reason several afterlight bars still thrived years into prohibition. They were a haven, a place for self-acknowledged outcasts to lower their masks without fear of judgment. Everyone in the room was Hell-bound and knew it, and most wanted nothing more than an evening of silent solidarity.

Al wasn’t immune. Far from it. Every day he was taunted with a world where he’d finally be free. Alastor was powerful and self-defined and wore masks only of his own volition and his own design. His masks were beautiful and light as the breeze, elevating his performance to something transcendent. They were nothing like Al’s.

Al’s weren’t ethereal, but a heavy  papier-mâché of human flaws. He never chose when to put them on. It was demanded. They never elevated him but dragged him down into the trenches of petty social games, because in that world people who didn’t bow their heads were shot.

Alastor understood, more than anyone else ever would. Some nights he’d put on a show just for Al’s sake, just to take the edge off. Some nights Al still found himself in a poorly lit bar, reveling in the rare bit of freedom. Nobody here would expect him to feign sorrow or sympathy or shame.

Not in the least because they’d started to recognize him. The boyishness had never quite left his features, but they’d sharpened and been joined by a pair of spectacles. The resemblance wasn’t perfect, but it already had the keen-eyed and clever doing a double-take. Some nights Al considered adding more than a splash of red to his attire—more than just the bow tie—and seeing if anyone dared come up and introduce themselves. Here of all places, where no one needed to pretend, Al might find another Gloria.

Nobody ever did.

* * *

No matter how much Al hated his masks, he was a performer at heart. Every single one of them was crafted to his highest standards, but that didn’t mean they were perfect.

It was always something unplaceable, some subliminal wrong that set alarm bells ringing in the minds of the hyper-intuitive. A shadow in Al’s smile or the too-bright light in his eyes or an unnaturally sharp gesture. Some people took a step back and refused to come closer. Others ran, metaphorically speaking, and Al laughed and let them.

But a few mistrusted their instincts and became some of the most entertaining people Al had the pleasure of meeting. Connor was chief among them.

It was no coincidence that the man was already a detective in his late twenties. He had a keen eye, a knack for clever inferences, and altogether too much trust in anyone he’d ruled out as a suspect. He was calm and professional at work, good-natured and agreeable at play, and careful to keep his third side buried deep under the surface.

It showed between the cracks, in too-long pauses before he spoke and less than subtle attempts to change the topic. It was the reason he refused to get emotional at work and refused to turn suspicion on his friends. There was a dense knot of tangled emotions in him—disgust, fury, horror, and more—all centered around the nightmares he’s seen people inflict on each other.

The “Satanists” were almost a breather. At least they were clearly insane. The mafia and cartels and smugglers, though? Those were normal, everyday people committing unspeakable acts for a cut of bootlegging profits. He never said it aloud, but the reminder of just how far ordinary people could go never failed to make him tense and lose his appetite.

There were times when Connor returned the favor and saw through the cracks in Al’s masks. A quiet, creeping suspicion would threaten to overtake him, and he’d blink and look away. Close his eyes. Make excuses. Those were just echoes of grief he was seeing. Combined with Al’s morbid sense of humor and confrontational tendencies, they made the perfect false alarm.

How wonderfully hilarious. The best thing about innocent, Heaven-bound people was how beautifully they did horror.


	25. Passion

Al had always loved the arts, and theater most of all. Theater was a refuge and a reminder, a place for people tired of their mundane lives to remember what it meant to be human.

Al wondered sometimes what sort of life he’d lead if his path hadn’t been decided. If he hadn’t known he was meant to be a radio host, perhaps, he thought, he might have chosen to be an actor. It was a brilliant line of work, performing on stage in front of hundreds of people and flying so close to the heights of genuine passion that his glow would pass the light on to his audience.

Perhaps in another life, Al’s love of theater would have won out, but in this one it still paid its dividends. The last step in his application to be a scriptwriter was reviewing a theatrical production. It was a test all in one of writing, analysis, and media fluency, and even without Alastor to tell him, Al would’ve known he was a shoo-in for the position. After all, writing a script was easy. He just had to make a speech then transcribe it.

Theater would always be Al’s favorite, but he was meant to be a radio host, and for good reason. He’d be missing the physicality of it—all the movements and gestures and expressions—but radio made up for it with reach. There were just a couple promotions to go until it was his voice on the airwaves. Someday soon he would be the one performing. He’d be the one reminding thousands how it felt to be alive.

* * *

“That was excellent!”

Al’s smile softened, genuinely pleased, as he set down his knife and fork. “It’s very fresh. I butchered it out back last night, and straight into the icebox from there.”

“A whole pig?” Al’s guest raised her brows, then lowered them archly. “Ah, so I’m not your only dinner guest this week. Such a shame.”

“Oh, no, no! No plans. What I don’t eat I’ll preserve. Cured or smoked, rillettes maybe. Why don’t you see for yourself?”

“Oh, but wouldn’t it be . . .  _ messy?” _

“While I’m working, sure, but any good chef keeps his workspace clean.”

* * *

It had taken years, but finally Al’s third contract was done. Perfect. Usable.

The first was Al’s own contract with his demons. His assurance that they’d live to 1933 and reap the rewards of Al’s dealings until then. The second was simple, full of holes but intentionally so. It was a promise and a threat, a soul for safety, a life preserver for people who thought they were drowning. It was up to Al to talk a puddle into an ocean.

The third was unnecessary—more unnecessary than the others even—but it was oh, so fun. After all, the best thing about Heaven-bound people was the moment their eyes flared wide with horror.

“After you,” he’d say. “The switch is on the right.” And everything else was laid out just so. Al would watch their eyes flick around, watch the quiet exhale as they didn’t see the blood they’d still half expected. They’d take a step inside, then another, just far enough for Al to step in and seal the door behind him.

Al would watch until they found the hints he’d left unhidden. The subtle geometric carving in the floor that resolved into a pentagram. The stains between the floorboards. The bones that weren’t from any animal. The chains on the walls and tools that clearly weren’t for butchery. He’d watch their eyes widen and drift to the shelves of jars and pots and preserved meat. He’d see their hands fly to their mouths in realization.

Then came the climax, Al’s turn to state his terms. For all the loopholes he’d had to close, the contract was quite simple. The trade was silence for safety, an odd reverse blackmail with a demon as enforcer and a soul as collateral. Al’s guest would damn themselves in the process—Heaven didn’t take kindly to bartering with demons after all—but by Al’s word they would be allowed to leave unharmed. If they took the deal, that was.

Never mind theater, here was true passion. Fear and horror. Rage and despair. Emotions danced across his victims’ faces like a kaleidoscope as they were forced to decide. Their lives or their afterlives. Their souls against the chance to see Al stopped, but that was the one thing Al couldn’t allow. That was his cue to take a turn in the spotlight and deliver a monologue of his own.

“Don’t think I don’t see that look. So you want to be a martyr, is that it? You think it’s worth forfeiting your soul to stop little old me? Go ahead, I already know I’ll die young. People like me don’t plan for our lives. We plan for our afterlives, and I’m sure I wouldn’t mind another soul at my command.”

There was a delicate balance to be struck. Too sinister, and they’d do it just to spite him. Too casual, and the reverse psychology wouldn’t stick. Al walked the line carefully, and when they were gone he’d flip on his afterlight to check.

Not once did he get it wrong. It was always his Alastor in the mirror, staring at him with something Al wanted to believe was pride.

* * *

Al always picked his own victims. Sometimes Alastor gave hints. “It’s been a while since you sat at the bar,” or, “Don’t leave early tonight, or you’ll miss all the fun.” They were never more than hints, though. He never said anything that would make Al question who was making the calls, not until one midsummer night.

“’Turn right down Argyle Street and go in the first open door you see. Oh, and watch your step!’ Great hint, Alastor. Just look at all the trouble you spared me.” Al hissed the words under his breath as he limped into his bathroom, trailing blood the whole way. It had been a while since he’d last had to use his first aid kid, but that night he set it down on the counter before flipping on the afterlight. All the red wouldn’t make it any easier to clean his wounds, but it was time to have words with Alastor.

“’Watch your step?’ That’s the best you could do?”

Al signed the words sharply, accusingly, then started with his shoulder. It was the only spot not already wrapped in a makeshift bandage, thanks to the glass in his skin. A pair of tweezers got the worst of it, and Al washed and bandaged the cuts while Alastor replied.

“You know perfectly well that it’s  _ all _ I could do. No more, no less. It’s hardly my fault if you decide to run through the traps anyway, but credit where credit’s due. She didn’t expect it.”

“No,” Al signed, drawing his brows into an angry line even as he kept smiling. “But she did expect  _ me. _ You sent me blind into a causality battle, and thanks to that I didn’t wrap it up properly. Now she’s in Hell doing God only knows what to prepare.”

Alastor laughed, his eyes following Al’s hands as they moved to the cut in his side. “You’re concerned for my sake? How adorable.”

Condescension dripped from Alastor’s words, and Al shot him a glare in return. “I’m  _ concerned _ about what you said. Effects without causes. I killed her for no reason but you telling me where to go.”

“Oh please. Don’t you worry your pretty little head. I’m still here, aren’t I?” He paused, staying uncharacteristically silent until Al sighed and stopped glaring. “Much better! Now, you seem to have this idea that everything should happen for a reason. Of course you do. I told you so, but where do you think I heard it, hm?”

Al’s hands slowed, then stopped. “From yourself.” That much was obvious. It was where Al had heard it. Alastor would have been the same while he was alive, and after Al died he’d teach it to whatever version of himself he saw, but that was ridiculous. 

“Exactly. All that’s stopping us from creating all the bootstrap paradoxes we want is just such a paradox. Our timeline rests on a single self-perpetuating piece of advice: don’t make self-perpetuating loops. And here’s another tip. Obey that like a priest would the gospel. Which is to say, swear by it until the moment it’s in the way.”

Al stayed silent for a while, his hands busy wrapping bandages around his knees and down to his ankles. Alastor took that as his chance to go on.

“Besides, it’ll take days to heal while you’re still human, but you can’t fool me. I remember just how much you missed this.”

There was no doubt in Al’s mind what  _ this _ was. It wasn’t the pain or the fight or the rush of adrenaline. It wasn’t fear of other speakers or lasting consequences. He’d spent too long dismissing those to start caring now. Most of all, he didn’t miss the feeling of victory. It was a part of him now, in every deal he made and every half-truth he told.

No, what he’d missed was opposition. His prize tonight wasn’t simple joy, but something layered. It started with a healthy base of schadenfreude, climbed up a whole range of emotions, and was topped with a crown of justified pride. After all, the only thing better than winning was knowing he’d bested someone to get there.

* * *

It was only the next morning that Al remembered one of his questions had gone unanswered.

“What are we going to do about her?”

“Oh, I think I’ll leave that up to you. You’ve got a couple years to decide.”

Of course he would. Al didn’t know why he’d bothered. He’d have two years to plan then. Two years to gather collateral and make a deal and keep the woman from gathering enough power to become a threat.

But why two years? Alastor couldn’t possibly know there was a deadline if he’d met it, not without creating another paradox.

“Two years, huh. Isn’t that oddly specific?”

Alastor just grinned and raised a brow.  _ “Oddly _ specific? No, I don’t think so. Two years from now—on my side anyway—is when she’ll send back her message. We can’t kill her until then, or that’ll be a  _ real _ paradox.” He took a moment to savor Al’s confusion before explaining. “Did you think she was a speaker? No, no, she’s just one of the rare demons to line up her timelines and send a message or two to her human. She’ll think she’s changing the past, but all she’ll manage to do is cause it.”

It took Al a moment to connect the dots, and his grin widened to match Alastor’s. “You want me to decide how  _ you’re _ going to kill her.”

“Exactly. You’re a scriptwriter now, aren’t you? Make it a good one.”


	26. Safety

Before Al left for an evening on the town, he’d almost always have a chat with Alastor. It was an easy habit to fall into. Al was a born conversationalist, Alastor was even better, and their shared intuition made accidental misunderstandings impossible. Their talks were a glorious web of unspoken words and inside jokes, and it was years before Al noticed the other benefit. For Alastor, the conversations were bookmarks.

“There won’t be too many people out on a Monday, but it was raining all weekend. I missed my usual night. Maybe someone else’ll be thinking the same.”

Midway through Alastor’s eyes lit up with recognition, and Al waited for the hint to come. It might be a venue to visit or a direction to look or something to keep an eye out for.

“Not tonight.”

Rarely was it a warning. A chill ran down Al’s spine as he raised his hands and signed as if he hadn’t heard a thing, as if the conversation had only just started. “What an exhausting Monday! I’ll be heading straight home, I think! That new comedy started a couple weeks back, and I still haven’t had the chance to listen to it. I think I’ll try tuning in over a good ol’ home-cooked meal. Now doesn’t that sound like a swell evening?”

Quietly Al committed the moment to memory and tried not to dwell on the implications. Self-contained loops were a last resort, a matter of life and death and branching causality. He didn’t know why and likely never would, but today his timeline could only go on by what amounted to a miracle. The warning had come out of nowhere like divine intervention, and Al could only assume that not only his life but Alastor’s depended on it.

* * *

Fridays were Al’s usual day to go for a stroll into the heart of the city and meet Connor for lunch and a chat. For today though, they weren’t in their usual diner but a deli half a block from the police department. It was as long a lunch break as Connor could spare that day, but Al didn’t mind. He could hardly blame the detective for being busy when it was, after all, Al’s own fault. Just a couple of days ago, he’d left the department another present.

These were always the best days to talk to Connor, the payoff for months of setup in between. Al would spend them slowly building tension, speaking freely about his job and leaving perfect breaks for Connor to volunteer details about his own. Then, before Connor could open his mouth to lecture him about confidentiality, Al would pretend to realize his mistake and go on like nothing had happened. It was subtle, but slowly that inequality in their friendship would start to chafe. Frustration would well up, rising above the old high water mark, but Connor would only brace himself, gather his sense of duty, and build the wall higher.

Then, when the time was right, a fresh body had been found, and Al’s case was on his mind, Al would strike. He’d walk up to that dam, already weakened by stress and distraction and desire for reciprocity, and chip away with morbid fascination.

“I’m glad you made it,” he said. “Even if it’s just coffee and sandwiches. Was it the Satanists again?” He didn’t have to fake his eyes lighting up with interest.

“Al. A man died.”

Al waited for Connor to realize the reproachful stare wasn’t working. “Believe me, I know exactly what that means. Better than most. I don’t need a lecture, and you have to admit there’s a certain mystique to it.” Sparks danced in Al’s eyes as he went on. “It’s not the same old people getting bumped off in back rooms and alleyways. There’s a reason I don’t ask you about those.”

Connor held his gaze for a few seconds longer, then sighed and shook his head. “Most people aren’t so enthusiastic about serial killers loose in their city. Terrified, more like.”

“Oh, but I already know they’re out there,” Al chuckled. “What’s a few more? Besides, it’s safer now than ever. The Satanists always wait a few months between sacrifices.”

“But that’s exactly the problem.” Connor sighed again, deeper this time, and stared into his coffee. “We’re too busy handling turf wars to keep the investigation up long term. Right after he kills there’s a rush to find new leads, then in a couple weeks it all dies down to nothing. Sorry, I'm sure you don't want to hear that after. . .”

After Gloria’s murder had gone unsolved, was the part left unspoken. Al ignored it, his focus elsewhere. Connor was oversharing again, and he’d let slip a fascinating little hint.

“’He?’”

“What?”

“You said ‘he’ just now. ‘Right after  _ he _ kills.’ Wasn’t it supposed to be a cult?”

Connor actually winced at that. “You didn’t hear it from me. Or at all, got it?”

Al nodded but still looked on expectantly, and whether it was stress or frustration or a blend of both, something got the better of Connor. He paused, took a sip of his coffee, and started talking quietly under his breath.

“Not that there’s anyone else you’d hear it from. The others still think it’s a cult, and the early evidence backs them up. There was too much blood. Multiple circles in one location. But now. . . I’ve been working this case for years, and the crime scenes—the cuts get neater every time. Like he’s been practicing.”

Now this was something. This was a career-ruining breach of protocol, and Al played the captive audience for all he was worth. “If their leader’s the only one cutting people up, he’ll get better each time,” Al said, but Connor shook his head.

"There's more. The last few times he’s left messages, but he’s been clever about it. He’s disguising them, and the others still don’t get it. Cults don't taunt the police. Serial killers do."

* * *

The plan worked even better than expected. It was well worth the effort of picking up a few Latin grammar books and dredging up long-forgotten lessons from high school. It was worth hours of pondering what phrases to leave, searching for a balance between deranged religious raving and blatant mockery.

“O Lord of Dark Places, we are powerful, and we are clever. Mortal men will never bind us, never misguide us from our services to You. We offer this sacrifice as proof of our prowess and our devotion. May your reign be unending.”

The words were different every time, but the essence stayed the same. A collection of boasts, disguised as vague appeals to a nonexistent deity. Evidently, it was perfect, just ambiguous enough to cause dissent in the homicide branch. And of course it would be dear Connor who figured it out first. Al did have a knack for picking his friends.

Still, it’d be no good to go too far. The Prohibition crime wave made for an excellent smokescreen, but it wouldn’t hide someone waving their arms and dancing. Given cause, the police would widen their nets, extend their interviews, and draw out even the most tenuous connections. Enough searching and they’d find the common thread. 

No, he’d keep to his patterns, at least as far as they could see. Once every few months, maybe a year, there’d be a disturbance. The fog would shift, but by the time they realized, he’d be gone. Like a phantom. Like the rest of Al’s victims.

Occasionally a bone or two would wash up in the bayou, but they were never identified, and the rest never found. They slipped through the fog like ghosts and vanished without a trace.

* * *

“Not tonight,” came the dreaded words, and this time Al didn’t have a reply. He turned around, pulled off his tie, and collapsed onto his bed.

He was bored, so utterly, painfully bored, and it wasn’t even the listless sort that lent itself to sitting around listening to whatever was on the radio. It was the gnawing, aching sort that demanded he go out and banish it by any means possible. A night on the town, perhaps, or a night in his workshop.

Neither of those would be happening. Not today, anyway.

He lay there for seconds that felt like minutes before looking up to meet Alastor’s gaze.

“Talk to me,” he signed.

“About what?”

“Anything. What’s it like living in Hell? New York was brilliant—a real city. Broadway was a treat, but after a while you miss the green, and Central Park just doesn’t cut it. Los Angeles too. Hollywood, gorgeous mountains, not a cloud in the sky, but the air was so dry I thought I’d choke. There’s no place like home after all, I guess.” Al knew he was babbling, but the moment he stopped, that boredom would come back again. Alastor spared him the trouble by cutting him off.

“I hear it takes some getting used to.”

“You hear?”

Alastor narrowed his eyes but went on like he hadn’t just been interrupted. “Step outside, paint the green and blue over with red, and you’ll have some idea of what it’s like. And yes, I hear. Our arrival in Hell is quite the eventful one. By the time you take a moment to breathe, you’ll be used to it already. Besides, red’s always been our color.”

With those last words, Alastor gave his cane a twirl and started walking, heading out the front doors of his radio station and down the street.

Al sat up in his bed. “Where are you going?”

“Oh, nowhere important. There’s a certain juice joint whose proprietor’s been neglecting his taxes. If no one else is going to teach him a lesson, I suppose I’ll have to do it myself. We live in such violent times.  _ Anything _ can happen when you spurn your overlord’s protection.”

Al perked up at that, then jumped off the bed to fetch his bow tie and re-knot it around his throat. When he sat down again, he did so carefully and politely on the side of his bed, his hands folded in his lap.

“Oh, if only every audience would be so courteous,” Alastor said, his eyes bright and his grin manic as he stopped outside a building lit by neon signs. For a moment he paused, and instead of reaching for the door, he raised his hand toward the mirror. His fingers tapped out a beat in midair, and only then did he step inside.

For a measure, everything was still. Then Alastor raised a hand to his mouth as if to clear his throat, and it exploded into chaos.

People ran only to find the doors barred. Others fought, to just as much avail. Shadows grasped them before they could reach, holding them still as Alastor danced between them, all swirling red and flashing claws. Blood splashed against tables and walls and pooled on the floor, reflecting the blue of neon lights.

But within the chaos was a subtle order. Everything flowed in tidy curves. Alastor’s movements, his footwork, his crescent grin. The arcs of his hands and the blood spatter that followed, half a beat behind as if he was conducting a grand symphony. Anyone who crossed him, whether fleeing or fighting, was summarily cut down. By some whim of his only a couple of demons were left untouched, a pair who’d stayed seated, frozen still with eyes wide and glued to his every move.

All of it was to the same tempo that Alastor had given him at the start, and Al caught himself tapping his fingers and nodding to the beat.


	27. Time

Years passed, and as Al grew, birthdays started to lose meaning. Twenty-five wasn’t so different from twenty-four, even if he still celebrated the day. Father paid a visit the weekend before, Mother the weekend after, and Connor the day of. Al took it as little more than an excuse to cook for guests.

No, the day he counted by now was April fourteenth. His death day. He’d earned a chuckle from Alastor when he admitted it. According to him, that was the custom in Hell, and he’d already gotten six years’ head start.

Then six years became five, and there was still so much left to do. He wasn’t a radio host. He hadn’t even managed to get his voice on air. There were contracts to fulfill, still more than half of them left. There were people to meet, shows to see, foods to sample, recipes to try. He’d traveled the US, or at least the parts he’d cared to see. Perhaps he could visit Europe?

It seemed there was no better incentive to live life than knowing he’d soon be dead.

* * *

When Al’s break came, it started with a simple question and answer.

“Your scripts. How do you write them?”

“Why, I just imagine what I’d say if it was me on air, then write it down.”

He only later heard about the flurry it caused behind the scenes. There was too much voice in the scripts, one of the hosts had complained. They were impossible to work with. Too natural, too much of someone else’s mannerisms, no room for interpretation. The man’s disagreeableness coincided with an all-time low in his ratings and a proposal for a new, more casual daytime talk show. For the first time, Al was asked to audition instead of applying, and within a matter of weeks—by seemingly no initiative of his own—he found himself with the title of co-host.

It was a joy to finally speak into a mic, to know that his voice was echoing out along the frequencies to an audience of thousands. Mother and Father were tuned in, maybe Connor if he was at his desk. People he knew and people he never would were listening along as he and his fellow co-host traded banter over the local news.

Al shoved down the hollow dissatisfaction of undeserved success—he’d earned his place, if not with his actions then with skill alone—and shoved even deeper the impulse to take his next promotion into his own hands. A slot would open soon enough. It was wonderful fun leaning on Connor’s inability to see him as a criminal, and it’d be downright idiotic to kill a coworker, visibly profit, and put himself at the top of the suspect list.

But that was fine. Al was well practiced at putting on a good-natured smile, even and especially for the people he most wanted dead.

* * *

Years passed, and with them came a measure of wisdom and common sense. Al would never be the Alastor he saw in the mirror, not while he was alive. That Alastor grew just as fast as he did, always thirty years ahead.

But he could reach the one he’d seen in his youth, even if it wasn’t technically the same person. That Alastor had still been captivating enough that Al had learned a language just to talk to him.

He wasn’t there yet, Al knew. Alastor carried himself with an ease that was impossible to mimic, a perfect comfort in his own skin. Al was still trying too hard, but he had no choice, not while he was still human. For now, he’d focus on the little things, the trivial details separating them both. Books Alastor had read, shows he’d seen, and foods he’d cooked.

Today’s recipe was a classic bolognese sauce straight out of a book, with Alastor advising on a few substitutions. Al had long since grown used to splitting his attention, and his hands danced between the pot, his cutting board, and a mirror he’d moved to the kitchen.

“That’s the milk and nutmeg,” he signed, pausing to stir the pot, “so next is the wine.”

“Or broth and vinegar in your case,” Alastor replied.

Al nodded and poured it in, once again signing between breaks in his stirring. “Wouldn’t grape juice have been better?”

“You had—?” There was that flash of recognition again, as Alastor remembered exactly which conversation they were having. Then that recognition slid into a dark amusement. “Of course you had grape juice. If you knew it was better, you should’ve used it from the start. Honestly now, would you do anything I told you?”

The question was flippant, sarcastic. Alastor’s eyes rolled to the ceiling as he asked it, but when he looked back, any doubts Al had were gone. Those eyes were expectant, and, incapable of anything but perverse honesty, Al raised one hand to answer, “Yes.”

The moment dragged on, torn halfway between solemn and absurd like the grandest joke. Al didn’t move. He barely breathed.

“Then throw that away.” Alastor nodded toward the pot, and Al scoffed and shot him an affronted glare. Throw out perfectly good food, now that it was nearly done? The very thought was offensive, but that was only a knee-jerk reaction.

Close as they were, Al could understand. It wasn’t about the food. It was about control. Alastor delighted at having power over others, even if they were technically himself, and it almost annoyed Al how willing he was to allow it, even if it was for Alastor alone.

The irony was beautiful. No wonder Alastor had refused to give him orders all those years ago. Al wouldn’t have hesitated for a second. Decades of idolization guided his hands to the pot handles, but it was there that he paused.

The outcome was inevitable, but Al was wiser now and recognized a simple truth. They’d both enjoy it more if he pushed back. Close as they were now, it wouldn’t be only their pleasure that he and Alastor felt, but a sympathetic echo of the other’s. With a chuckle, Al pulled his hands from the pot and took the initiative to deepen both.

“I want a favor in return.”

And Alastor, knowing exactly what that favor was, agreed without a second thought.

With a flourish and a bow, but not bothering to hide his pained expression, Al grabbed the pot and upended it over the trash. He closed his eyes for a few seconds of mourning, then set the pot down and walked over to the mirror. His fingertips pressed against the glass as his other hand awkwardly, one-handedly signed, “And for that, the price you’ll pay is a dance.”

It was the same routine as before. Alastor’s smile was indulgent as he tapped out a beat and let it become Al’s music.

But this time Al kept his eyes open and copied Alastor’s every step. He knew how to dance the Charleston now, and within a couple of minutes, he wasn’t following. Al couldn’t tell if he was anticipating Alastor’s moves through sheer intuition or if Alastor was remembering his, but their steps aligned perfectly. The mirror’s reflection was exact save for surface details of clothes and eyes, and Al’s smile grew to the most heartfelt it had been in years.

* * *

“How much do you remember?” Al asked one day, and Alastor raised a questioning brow. “Do you memorize the signs you saw when you were alive and repeat them back to me?”

“Do  _ you _ memorize them?” Alastor asked, as if the question was itself an answer, and in a way it was. There were the moments Al knew to take cues from for the sake of his timeline. Then there were the moments he recalled with crystal clarity, but not for any conscious effort to commit them to memory.

Alastor took his silence for understanding. “There’s a constant déjà vu of recognizing your words as you’re signing them, but you’ll never be reading from a script. Other speakers have to pretend to care about their humans. They’ll play the part to keep their futures in line, but you’re building one where you won’t pretend to be me. No lines, no acting, and all because you’ve made yourself someone worth talking to. It’s been so very entertaining.”

That was high praise coming from Alastor, and Al could feel warmth spreading across his cheeks as he moved the conversation to his plans for the weekend.

* * *

Al’s favorite diner had closed not long after the stock market crash, so Al and Connor moved their lunch meetings permanently to the deli. It too seemed barely afloat, but that was all the more reason to continue their patronage. Even in these uncertain times, they’d each earned a promotion and an accompanying raise.

Connor’s had been first. He was Sergeant now, head of his squad of detectives, though he still went out in the field often enough. More importantly, he was now the chief authority on the Satanist case. Satanist, singular.

Al’s own promotion was yet to come, but it had been finalized the day before. A casual news program didn’t trend well with today’s audience, so the station was axing it and moving him to radio drama. It’d be an evening show this time, a solo act. He’d been looking forward to it and looking forward to telling Connor the good news, but the man seemed ecstatic enough to fly out of his seat before Al said a single word.

“Made a breakthrough?” Al said by way of greeting.

“Yes!” Connor almost snapped the word in his excitement, then paused and let out a sigh. “Well, not yet, but we. . .” He hesitated as usual before spilling anything confidential, but in all their years of friendship, Al hadn’t repeated a word to anyone else. Al leaned in quietly, interest clear on his face, and Connor relented. “We got a tip. It’s anonymous, but it looks like it might check out. There’s nothing conclusive yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”


	28. Admirer

Al never saw the picture, but in the weeks after hearing about it he learned enough. Connor's frustration mounted with every day that passed, and it made him talkative.

The photo was a nighttime one outside the home of the Satanist’s last victim. The police had analyzed it, and the weather and phase of the moon matched the night of the murder. Its position in the sky matched the approximate time. A car was parked on the street outside, but its plates weren’t visible and it was a standard Model T.

It wasn’t much to go on, but on the back was written a promise. “More to come.” So far nothing had come in, though, and dusting the photo hadn’t turned up any fingerprints.

“Maybe the killer sent it,” Al suggested. “It wouldn’t be his first time taunting the cops.”

Connor shook his head. “It doesn’t match. He’s too condescending.”

Al gave him a questioning stare, and Connor sighed and started explaining.

“He thinks he’s clever with his little coded messages, but that’s just it. They’re messages, not clues. Killers who leave clues do it for the thrill. They want to break the rules, play cops and robbers, but this one? That’s not his game. He’s in it for the murder, and he figured he’d put on a show on the side. We’re not part of his act. We’re just the audience, and the audience doesn’t need cue cards.”

Al didn’t have to pretend to be impressed. His eyes widened with every piece of eerily accurate profiling, and he paid rapt attention to every word of the rest.

“The photo’s different. Dispassionate. Matter-of-fact. Neat writing, plain envelope, just enough in the picture to tell us they know something without saying what. They could’ve taken the plate number, but they didn’t, and now I’ve got two psychos playing games with me over people’s lives.”

* * *

Connor’s frustration helped, but it took Alastor’s reassurance to truly feel safe again. After all, it was as Connor said. The photo could just as easily been of his license plate, but it wasn’t, and Al loathed not knowing why.

“Maybe someone just happened to take a picture, then realized what it was and added the note to feel self-important.”

Al was pacing, signing half to himself as Alastor finished some urgent correspondence. He did reply to that one though, pausing to chuckle and set his pen down. “Is that really what you want? How boring.”

“Better than getting arrested,” Al snapped. “Now  _ that _ would be boring.”

“But you know it won’t happen. It’s not in your future, and your friend there would have turned you in already if that was what they wanted.”

Al rolled his eyes. “Then why take the picture? To prove they were there? Do I have an admirer?”

That earned Al not just a chuckle but a proper laugh. “It adds up, doesn’t it? They can’t give it to you in person, and they don’t know where you live. If a writer’s fan mail goes to their publisher, it only makes sense to send a serial killer’s to the police.”

Al didn’t know whether to be relieved or furious, but if Alastor said it wasn’t a concern, then it wasn’t. “So now what? Business as usual?”

Alastor smiled. “Whatever makes you happy.”

* * *

As a rule, afterlight bars were niche, hole in the wall attractions, a carefully kept secret from the overzealous sort that had called for prohibition in the first place. A few survived in the open by sheer force of notoriety, but those were mainstream, frequented more by the curious Heaven-bound than true sinners.

The real fun had long since gone underground and split between two groups. Some of the bars were more lounge than pub, all red velvet, dim lights, and plush couches. Others were afterlight bars only nominally, their mirrors grimy and fogged over so nobody could see their reflections.

The divide had sharpened after the war, and it only grew wider with the unemployment rate. More people than ever wanted to forget the world outside, one way or the other. Some chose to distance themselves from the squalor and spend their evenings celebrating sin, debauchery, and everything in Hell worth savoring. Others were embittered through and through and wanted nothing more than a bit of oblivion to drown their misery.

Al was a patron of both in equal measure. The former had atmosphere and class. There were dancers and music, weekend shows, and plenty of presumptuous sinners to disappoint when he went home alone.

The latter had a different appeal—the pleasure of sipping his drink and looking over a sea of hopeless cases. It was where he conducted his business.

There was a simple truth that misfortune bred misery, and misery bred desperation. Al could pick out at a glance the sort he was looking for, people with dirt on their clothes and holes in their coats. The ones who’d lost their jobs, their homes, their families, and their purpose. They worked any odd jobs they could find for food and a drink, and they came here because their afterlives were no better. It only took one cheer of, “Stay strong, trust in Jesus, and you’ll find paradise when all this is done!” to put them off of normal speakeasies for good.

It was easy to spin them a story. Afterlight could change, and the good life existed even in Hell. Al would know. It was easy to make promises and see the light in their eyes glimmer back into being. They would have fulfilling work, a steady income, and a front-row seat to Alastor overthrowing Hell’s old, aristocratic overlords.

He could give them back their future. It was right there in the palm of his hand, all for the measly cost of a life and a soul.

* * *

There was something unsatisfying about simple deals, where all Al had to do was make a promise he could readily keep. No hooks, lines, or sinkers, just a gun and fish in a barrel. Anyone could do it.

But it made Alastor happy, and that was more than enough reason to keep going.

“Are you sure I can’t scare them just a bit?” he complained one day.

“Oh, but you do scare them,” Alastor grinned. “You talk about Hell and smile. You solve all their problems with a few quick words and hold out your hand like it’s no skin off your back, and all they see is a monster. You don’t have to bite to show you have teeth, just flash them. Make them glad you’re on their side.” Alastor paused for the words to sink in, then went on. “Besides, it’s good practice.”

“Good practice for what?”

“Why, dealmaking in Hell, of course! Did you think you could keep getting away with that Deal-or-Die game you’ve been playing? Pull that one here, and you’ll have overlords lining up to call for your execution. No, true deals are give and take. We take our rules seriously here—or what few we have, anyway. No death threats, or at least not explicit ones.”

A rare curl of doubt twisted through Al’s chest. “Then until now—“

Alastor cut him off with a wave of his hand. “All perfectly above board. The human world’s out of our jurisdiction. They couldn’t do a thing even if they were paying attention. You’ll come in like a bolt from the blue, and they won’t know what hit them.”

* * *

It was four months until the next clue arrived, then seven, then five. A photo of a footprint in mud, another of a blurry, silhouetted figure, and a note on the many flaws of one of Al’s summoning circles.

“What? You mean the circles aren’t real?” Al put on his best betrayed look and savored the shock spreading across Connor’s face.

“Al!  _ That’s _ what you take from this? The man was on the scene right after the killer, and the first thing you care about is the circles?”

“I’m not a cop,” Al shrugged. “Good luck, but unless you think I can help, I’m just here for the theatrics. And don’t look at me like that,” he added at seeing Connor’s disapproval. “I want you to catch him just as much as before, but it’d be more interesting if he was dealing with demons.”

Connor stared for a moment, then sighed. “The blood at this scene didn’t spread into the wood grain. It was coagulated before he started drawing. There were others drawn in fresh blood, while the victim was still alive.”

“Then—“

“Who knows? I’m not an occultist nut.” He gave Al a pointed look, then went on. “If our informant was there right after the killer, then it fits the profile. A friend of the killer’s—a sibling maybe. Someone who learned the same practices and knows what he’s doing. They want to see him stopped, but they don’t want to betray him, so they push down their emotions, send in clues, and hope we’ll do the rest of the work.”

Al let his skepticism rise to the surface. “Would someone do all that?”

“Misguided loyalty can take people to darker places than you imagine,” Connor said, his voice cold and deathly serious. A chill crossed the table, and the two sipped their coffees, lost in their own thoughts.

It was a shame, but nobody could be right all the time. The profile was hilariously inaccurate, but Al had rather been hoping Connor would do the work for him. Maybe a push in the right direction would help.

“What if it’s a fan?”

Connor shook his head. “It’s possible, but there are too many loose ends. Why send us clues? They’re not trying to get him caught, so what’s the point? To see who wins? It’d explain the neutrality if they’re playing referee, but they’re only giving hints to one side. Unless they’re in touch with the killer too, I suppose, but there’s no sign that he’s changed his patterns. And if they were in touch, I doubt he’d let them get away with it for long.  _ And _ it raises the question of how they know where he’s going to kill. . .”

Al could hazard a few guesses—someone who’d recognized him in an afterlight club and followed as far as they dared, for one—but none that wouldn’t risk leading back to him. He sighed and let the matter go again.


	29. Deals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mentions of suicide.

“I’m not going to regret this, am I?”

Alastor smirked and waved a breezy hand. “Oh please. Have you ever regretted making a deal? Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts now.”

“Who, me?” Al scoffed. “Never. But this  _ is _ my last contract. I was thinking I might save it for a special occasion.”

“What could be more special than your last unofficial death day?”

Al could think of a few. His true death day was obvious, but it’d be dreadfully last-minute. More than a special occasion though, Al ached to use it on a special  _ someone, _ the mysterious thorn-in-his-side admirer still occasionally sending photos to the police.

But that was the same problem. They’d been going for years and hadn’t changed their pattern, hadn’t brought the police any closer to Al, hadn’t let slip any clues to their own identity. Al could wait for them to make a move, but if they didn’t he’d be left with an unfinished contract and an urgent need to make a hasty deal. It’d be a dull end to a plot he’d been having so much fun with, and it’d be terribly impolite to the demon at the other end.

Alastor was hedging again, answering questions with questions and pushing Al down his chosen path, and Al sighed and let himself be pushed. It paid to consider the consequences, and the consequence of not using his last deal today would be admitting his admirer had him worried. It’d be a life built on hesitation and fail-safes and fear of the unknown, a dull life of second-guessing every move.

The longer Al waited, the more he’d miss. There was no winning if he never played the game, no performing until he started the show. If the rules changed midway and the writers threw out the script, he’d simply find a way to make do. Never let it be said that Al didn’t know how to ad-lib.

* * *

The demon faded away still muttering under her breath. “Took him long enough. Barely a year left. Here I am sticking my neck out, and I get barely a year with. . .”

She vanished with a puff of smoke, and Al held his breath and watched it float up to the ceiling. It curled against the wood and blurred into the grain, and Al didn’t feel any different.

He’d half expected to. It was done. His last deal as a human. No more contracts, no more blood seals, not unless he was feeling especially formal. His next deal would be as a demon, sealed with nothing more than a handshake, and his nature would take care of the rest.

“Now what?” asked a voice from behind him, and Al suppressed a flare of irritation. It didn’t matter. They weren’t interrupting. He’d been foolish to think he’d feel any different while he was still so painfully human.

“Now you make a choice,” he said, spinning around to face a man in his forties. “How would you prefer to die? Rope, knife, gun?” Al ticked the options off on his fingers, not caring one way or the other. This was always the most tedious part of the process. Suicide left a bad taste in the mouth even when it wasn’t out of despair but striving for a better future.

But the man shook his head. “Don’t need ‘em. Just a roof. Feels right to spend my last seconds as a free man flying.”

Now that was a first. Al chuckled despite himself. “Heart of a poet, huh? Alright. I’ll drive. Any specific roofs in mind?”

“My old office at the bank. They deserve it after what they did to us.”

And a bit of revenge thrown in! This was looking like it’d be a fun trip after all, well worth going out on his death day. Al ignored the unwashed smell and wrapped an arm around the man’s shoulders, laughing when he only got a resigned sigh in return. “I think we’re going to get along just fine,” he said. “Tell me, do you have any experience in management?”

* * *

Al was on alert the moment the knock came on his door. It was probably harmless, a door to door salesman or evangelist, but not everyone with his address had good intentions.

But when Al swept it open he found only Connor. The man leveled him with a stormy glare, then raised his brows at the knife in Al’s hand.

“Dinner is beef roulade,” Al explained and headed back toward his kitchen. “But that’s not why you’re here.”

Al listened for the sound of Connor closing the door behind him then hanging up his coat and belt. Only then did he relax and get back to his cooking.

“It’s not,” Connor said. “Al, I need you to be honest. Have you repeated what I’ve told you to anyone? Anyone at all? Friends, family, bragging at the bar?”

“Who do you take me for?” Al scoffed. “I have plenty of my own stories without resorting to others’ given in confidence. I haven’t told a soul, and I’ve never lied to you.” Al looked over his shoulder as earnestly as he could manage with his constant smile and saw Connor relax.

“Then just take a look at this, and I’ll be out of—“

“Too late. You’re staying for dinner, like it or not. I’ll look as soon as it’s in the oven.”

It took a few minutes of rolling, tying, and browning the edges before the roulade was ready to go in, and Al filled the time with idle chatter about his day. When it was done, Al seated himself at his dining table to see what Connor had to show.

“We’ve been trying to make contact with our informant through the papers, and we think they finally got the message. But their reaction was. . . well. . .”

Connor went on, but his voice was only background static as Al read and reread the letter.

_ Show everyone who knows. Everyone. No exceptions. If you leave out a single person, I will know, and I will immediately cut off all communications. _

_ Make no further attempts to find me. You won't know who I am until the day we meet, but you know what I can do. The proof is that you’re reading this letter. Don't try to reach me. I'll keep sending messages, and when it's time, I'll find you, and we’ll finally have our meeting. _

Al had thought it’d be harder to hide his reaction, but it was as easy as breathing. He watched as if from outside himself as his brows furrowed, his head tilted, and his smile turned into a bemused smirk. He listened to his own voice mutter, “Well that sure is something,” all puzzled curiosity and not a trace of dawning horror. He ate his dinner and barely tasted it, and when he waved Connor off and closed his door, there wasn’t so much as a hint of the fury coursing through his veins.

* * *

“So this is it, then? This is how I die in this timeline? Killed by a speaker so pathetic they botch the follow-through and allow you to exist? Tell me, are they too stupid to realize you’ll kill them? Or just too incompetent to break my timeline before I die?”

Alastor just looked on in silence, happily sporting his most insufferable grin, and for once even Al was affected.

“Oh, or  _ maybe _ I win after all, read through my list of contracts, and realize I wasted the last one on George from accounting! Oh, dear me! It seems my only choice now is to kill myself and erase the speaker personally before he forms an alliance against me in Hell! So which is it? What sort of second-rate ending did you write for me? Did you hinge our timeline on an ignoble death or an idiotic one?”

For a moment Al just stared at the mirror, his head full of venomous thoughts he couldn’t say.  _ Thanks. Thanks for making it so easy to do everything you wanted. I wouldn’t sabotage myself for just anyone, you know. Thank you  _ kindly _ for making me think all this time you had my best interests at heart. It was great, such wonderful fun while it lasted. _

Just as Al was about to close his eyes and turn away, Alastor finally raised his hands.

“Neither. You’re missing the key.”

“What key?” Al signed it quickly then waited. Alastor didn’t answer questions unless it suited him, and wouldn’t that be a perfect litmus test. Would he be honest or dance around it as he so often did? Al couldn’t decide which it was that he wanted, which he was waiting for.

“You don’t need a contract to bind him.”

Honesty or dance? Al still couldn’t tell. “Then what do I need?”

“Why, nothing more than a handshake,” Alastor said and held out his hand.

Ah, dance it was. Al’s gaze flicked down to that hand then up to Alastor’s eyes. “I can’t make deals with a handshake. I’m still human.”

“Is that what you think?”

It had been so long ago that Alastor first taught him the rules of dealmaking. The first: mind your exact words. The second Al muttered under his breath, not bothering to sign it. “Don’t tell anyone what you want, or they’ll have you dancing on puppet strings. Lesson learned.”

He could still walk away. Leave this all behind. Let his deals fall through and make new ones, and in the end he’d find a distant death he hadn’t been manipulated into. It would be a good life—better maybe than what he had now—but one day he’d skip into his room, hit the afterlight by force of habit, and regret everything about that decision.

No, it was much too late to go back now. It had been for years, decades even.

So Al stuck out his hand even though they were in different rooms and years and planes of existence and there wasn’t a drop of magic beneath his skin. Al reached out, and Alastor pulled his hand away and laughed.

“Oh, no. Not yet. Not with me.”

It was a full two days before Al turned on his afterlight.


	30. Demons

It was always obvious when new clues came in. Nothing else sent that familiar blend of elation and frustration warring across Connor’s face, and nowadays horror joined in more often than not. Connor still called them clues, but they weren’t anymore. Their informant had broken from who and how and started answering questions of why. Why the blood, why the circles, why the sacrifices. Al never could tell if Connor truly believed or if it was disturbing enough that the killer did. Connor hid behind a facade of professionalism, but Al liked to think it was the former.

The letters showed up like clockwork now, one at the start of every month, a slow countdown to an end Al still couldn’t see. Every tick was a constant reminder of all he should have seen, the parallels that should have been obvious years ago. A writer’s fanmail went to her publisher, a killer’s to the police, and both to Al by proxy of his friends. “She’ll be useful.” “He’s a fan.” Alastor’s words were always vague and reassuring when he needed Al to look away.

It was easy. Al had wanted to listen. He’d wanted to forget and go on as if nothing had happened, and Alastor had taken full advantage. Al couldn’t blame him. It was in his nature.

* * *

Around October Al took up pacing again and found that he hated it.

“Shouldn’t I be doing something?” he asked, turning around and flicking his eyes down despite himself, just to make sure he hadn’t worn a furrow in the floor.

“Yes. Go out. You’re making me dizzy.”

That earned Alastor a glare until he sighed, stopped being intentionally obtuse, and started being oblique instead.

“There’s nothing for you to do. The goalie doesn’t leave his post if the ball’s on the other side of the field. When it’s your move, you’ll know.”

Al let out a sound halfway between laugh and sigh and went back to pacing. So this was to be one of  _ those _ conversations, the ones where Alastor played muse and sounding board while Al drew the conclusions himself. 

“Alright,” he signed, “but why am I the goalie? Why am I playing defense?”

“Because you’ll win as long as you don’t lose.”

Al shook his head at the tautology, but there was a hint there. It was Alastor’s assurance that he didn’t have to counterattack, just survive with his future intact. “So it’s not a battle but a siege?” he signed, and Alastor grinned ever wider.

“No trenches for you,” he answered. “You have a castle.”

Al froze with one foot in midair and slowly let the implications sink in. After a few seconds, he sat down on his bed and stared wide-eyed at his reflection. So that was why. That was why he was always on the receiving end of these battles, both the first time and now. He was playing his own game, building his own future, and that was temptation aplenty to try to sweep it all out from under him. “I have a castle. And in the dungeon. . .” He whispered the words, but Alastor caught them anyway.

“Exactly. Why did you think he hadn’t turned you in yet? You’re hoarding a precious treasure, and there’s no point killing you if your souls get lost along the way. The Most Dangerous Game? Ha! What a failure of imagination! It’s only one life up for grabs there. So tell me, how does it feel to be the prey for a change?”

Al longed to laugh at that, but he knew a better answer. His manic grin perfectly mirrored Alastor’s as he raised a hand to his chest then transitioned smoothly into sign. “I’m honored! He’s gone so far to invite me to play! All those messages, just to make sure dear Connor would trust me enough to pass on his invitation. All those photos to let me know he’s a threat. He has no clue who he’s dealing with, does he?”

* * *

It was on the first of February that the balance finally shifted. They’d met outside the deli as usual, but this time Connor was picking at his sandwich, pulling layers apart with a toothpick and drawing out the meat.

“Another letter?” Al asked as if there was any question.

“The penultimate one, if you believe it.” Connor paused and let out a sigh. “I don’t know if I want to. If they do lead us to the killer. . . If it’s all true. . .” He looked at his sandwich, suppressed a shudder, and blurted out, “He’s eating them.”

It was always so tedious to pretend to be horrified, but Al forced his eyes wide anyway. “The killer? The  _ trophies?” _

“They weren’t trophies. Trophies are something you keep.” Connor shook his head. “He’s been— What he’s been doing, it’s. . .”

“Cannibalism,” Al finished, but Connor pinned him with a stare before he could say any more.

“No. Not cannibalism. Cannibals eat their own kind. Whatever this killer is, he’s not human anymore, if he ever was."  And with that, a deep silence fell upon the table, at least until Al finished his meal.

“If you’re not going to eat that, there are people who would happily beg for it,” he said, pointing to Connor’s mess of a dismantled sandwich.

“I’ll leave it here then,” he said, then looked up at Al. “You’re not. . ? You still feel fine?”

Al smiled back, all horror long since gone from his expression. “Of course! Unless you’re the one eating people?” He paused just long enough for Connor to tense in shock. “No? Then why waste a perfectly good lunch on feeling down? You’ll only be hungry later, but that gives me an idea! It’s been a while since I’ve had a guest for dinner, and I swear, just a smell of my roast will make you forget you’ve ever felt queasy!”

And if Alastor’s very existence hadn’t been enough, Connor’s smile was all the proof Al needed that it didn’t take being human to wear a disarming grin.

* * *

Of course it was Connor—dear, clever, insightful Connor—who finally made him see. It wasn’t afterlight. It wasn’t a flip of a switch or a wall of hard glass. It was a slide—slow and gradual and creeping.

Al felt light enough to skip down the streets, and on another day he would have stopped himself. Normal people didn’t skip. Normal people were quietly happy and only let themselves go at night, when the lights were flashing and the music playing and the dance floor just begging for them to have a good time.

But Al didn’t need music to keep a beat, and he didn’t need a stage to put on a show. He didn’t need permission to be happy, only a reason, and what a reason he had!

All along he’d been measuring from the wrong mark. Of course he wasn’t Alastor! Only death would push him past those last insurmountable inches. For just a moment though, Connor had grabbed him by the shoulders, spun him around, and forced him to see just how far he’d come. There was humanity, off in the distance, and barely any closer was the border of Hell. It wasn’t just overstepping boundaries, he’d been sprinting past them without a care, focused only on one goal.

No wonder Alastor looked like him. The shape of Al’s soul wouldn’t change when he died, only its nature. All that was left between them were a last few layers of pretense clinging to Al like an ill-fitting suit.

There was only one afterlight bar in the city that Al avoided, and he knocked on its door now with relish. This had once been a place of beginnings. Now it would be one of endings.

“We’re closed!” came a shout, and Al knocked again. This time the door opened, and Al preemptively stuck his foot in the gap. “What do you—? You.”

Al’s grin widened as he flicked a quarter in the air. “Me. But I have no trouble for you, only a message. You’ll know when to pass it on, and you’ll regret reading it, keeping it, burning it—any silly ideas in your head that aren’t doing exactly as I say. You can even have a tip.”

Al slid the quarter into the note, handed it through the door, and pulled his foot back before it slammed in his face.

It was only when he got home and looked into the mirror that Al realized the obvious. The man had almost surely recognized Alastor and not the child he’d met so many years ago.


	31. Dinner

Al spent a while scanning between radio stations before flipping it off entirely and putting on a record. The night wasn’t right for a talk show. Al had no desire to compete with another voice for Connor’s attention, and there was something delightful about these big-band tracks. It was all the low-pressure warning of a storm front bearing down on the world of music, and the only shame was that Al wouldn’t see it make landfall.

But for what it was worth he could introduce Connor, and it made for pleasant small talk while the roast baked. Al busied himself with sides of green beans and mashed potatoes, moving with the music and lamenting the cost of recording a full orchestra in such hard times.

It wasn’t long before the food was ready, the table was set, and a less than legal bottle of wine cracked open for the occasion. Al pulled out a chair for Connor, earning himself a strange look in the process.

“Al, are you feeling alright?” he asked.

“Never better,” Al hummed. His knife flashed in his hands and came away red as he cut into the center of the roast. “Ah. A bit rare, I’m afraid, but it just adds to the taste.” And the visual appeal was undeniable, deep brown on the outside and a warm red within.

“I’m serious, Al. You don’t have to force yourself to put on a show for me. People react differently. Sometimes things take a while to sink in, even if you were okay at lunch.”

Al sat wordlessly across from him and held Connor’s gaze until the man relented and took a bite. “Thank you,” Al said and started cutting his own slice into pieces. “I’m serious too. It’s not a show. I’m done acting for other people. From now on, it’s only for me.”

No more fake frowns. No more bending over backward to fit in. Al’s smile settled more naturally on his face—a permanent, unchanging fixture—and there was no way Connor wouldn’t notice the difference. Nor that Al had ignored his steak knife and was still using the long carving knife to nudge food onto his fork.

Connor noticed, but still he stayed careful, uncertain. “Well, you do seem upbeat. Did something happen?”

Al clapped his hands in delight. “Absolutely, my dear old friend!  _ You _ happened, and you were so very right! The killer’s a demon! I can’t believe it took me so long to see it. I wonder how long it’s been. . .”

“Al?”

Al took another bite before musing aloud. A red line dripped from the corner of his mouth to his chin. “Since the first time, maybe? Now that was a real clash, speaker to speaker.”

“Speaker? Al, what are you—?”

“Or maybe it was from the moment I saw him. Alastor, I mean. But oh, where are my table manners?”Al dabbed at his chin with a napkin and flashed a grin at Connor. “Talking with my mouth full, going on and on without letting my guest get a word in edgewise. You’re clever, what do you think?”

And Connor was fighting it. His shoulders were tense and his brows furrowed, but concern was as ever beating out suspicion. “Al, who are you—?  _ You’re _ Alastor. And what’s a speaker?”

Al let out a deep sigh and took another bite. “Oh come now, you’re a better detective than that.  _ I’m _ not Alastor. Alastor is the man in the mirror. I’d introduce you, but you wouldn’t see each other, and he already knows you.”

And still with that ridiculous, hilarious concern. Connor’s eyes were scanning now, flicking between Al’s hands and eyes for clues. “Al, you didn’t hit your head, did you? Or smoke something new?”

Al laughed at that. He couldn’t help himself. “Oh, Connor! I’m not hopped up, only having the time of my life! I just wish I’d noticed—ah! Sit!” Connor had barely risen from his seat when he froze. The tip of the knife was only inches away from his stomach. Its tip gestured down in steady circles, and slowly he lowered himself back into his chair. “Good. Now please, eat up. I put so much time into this dinner. It’d be a shame to let it go to waste.”

It was only after Connor took another bite that Al pulled the knife away. The sound of trumpets and saxophones filled the room, and Al tapped his fork against the plate to the beat of the drums.

“No more questions now, alright?” he finally said. “You’re better than that. I know you are. You’ve been so close for so long, right from the very start. Just one more step.”

And oh, there it was. It had been a while since Al had seen that expression. Fragile hope and the knowledge of just how fragile it was. “Al. You can’t be. You’re not.” His voice shook at the words, and Al let out a chuckle.

“Why can’t I? Because I’m not the type to join a cult? That hasn’t been a problem for years, now has it?”

“You said you’d tell the truth.”

“And I did! I’ve never told you a single lie. You just asked all the wrong questions. Well here’s your chance to change that! I’ll let you have one more, for old time’s sake. Go on, ask me anything.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table, hands crossed under his chin and still holding the knife and fork.

It wasn’t fear that made Connor stop and think. For all that he’d been at knifepoint barely a minute ago, not a trace of it showed in his eyes, only a faint desperation as he finally asked, “How many?”

“Oh, Connor!” Al laughed. “You’d make an awful dealmaker! This isn’t an interrogation. You don’t get to be vague and see if I damn myself. Demons aren’t so forgiving.” All the same, Al’s laugh turned into a sigh, and he went on. “It’d be so easy to answer the wrong question, but for you, I’ll throw a bone. The truth is, I don’t know. I lost track years ago, but I promise you don’t know the half of it.”

Silence. The room went quiet, save for the hiss of the record player reaching the end of the track. Al filled it with the clink of silverware, but it wasn’t long before he was bored.

“Still connecting the dots? I’ll give you a few more. I said I’d kill Gloria’s murderer if I got the chance, and I did. He was my first, only partly by choice. He was a speaker, you see, and circumstances around us are never so simple.”

Not a sound, only the garbled static of the needle riding the label.

“What’s a speaker, you ask? Why, we’re the ones who look in the mirror and see our futures looking back. They see us, teach us, and show us the way to reach them. I’m close, you know. Closer than I ever thought, and it’s all because of you that I finally realized.”

Connor stared down at his plate, eyes unfocused, and that was the last straw. Al’s voice was quiet in his anger—soft and tense, not a threat but a promise.

“They say people have two impulses—fight or flight—but they’re wrong. There’s a third. Some people freeze.” Al leaned across the table, knife in hand, and tipped Connor’s chin up with a finger. “I don’t mind. I’m used to filling the silence, but I can’t let you ignore me. Look at me.”

If he looked he’d have no choice but to see. Al was leaning forward, braced against the table in case Connor tried to shove it and run. One hand held a knife, the other a fork. His eyes hid nothing, and his smile was stained red. Connor looked and saw Al’s half-eaten plate, then his own barely-touched slice of roast, only missing a few conspicuous pieces. His face went white and his eyes widened with horror as a grin spread across Al’s face.

“So you did figure it out! It’s been a few months since the last Satanist killing, but I prefer to do most of my business out back.” Al pointed his thumb at the back door, out toward his shed. “I get to have all my tools, and it keeps the meat fresher.”

Finally there were traces of panic. Connor’s breathing was shallow and sharp, his eyes flicking between Al, his plate, and the room. His hands gripped his own knife like a lifeline.

This was it. Moments like these would make it all worthwhile. The audience would always justify the act, but not for their sake. Even as Al put on his masks, they’d drop theirs, and it’d be his turn to watch. It’d be the perfect reciprocal whirl of action and genuine reaction, effortless like lines on a script, and even when Al couldn’t see them—even when the show was over the airwaves—moments like these would let him imagine.

“Why?” Connor gasped, and Al’s gaze slipped into something fond as he shook his head. Again with the open-ended questions and a million ways to answer them. Why he killed? Why he dealt in souls? Or why Connor, why today’s little show? The manic energy left Al with a breath, and for a moment he was calm, his smile inviting.

“Because tonight is my last hurrah. After this, I’m done, all grown up and ready to move on. But I need just one more to arrange a meeting, and for what it’s worth, you are my friend. After you showed me the truth, it’s the least I could do to return the favor.”

The scrape of wood against wood echoed through the air, the sound of Connor trying to sidle out of his chair and pushing too far. All the tension flooded back into the room as the two locked eyes. Connor’s were resolute, unapologetic, and Al’s narrowed as he beamed at him.

“Don’t bother going for your gun. You won’t make it ten feet.” Al had picked their seats carefully tonight, putting himself between Connor and the hall. “It’s your last night on Earth. Please, sit. Have a drink and enjoy one last home-cooked meal.”

Al waved an arm at the table, set with plates and wine and sharpened knives. It wouldn’t be long until Connor realized what he was holding and took his chance, but Al calmly took another bite. He’d been here before, and this time he knew not to catch the knife but the hand holding it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I learned this week that Karinacapybara drew a beautiful [cover art](https://karinacapybara.tumblr.com/post/615011171501735936/im-back-with-another-fanfic-cover-this-time) for Afterlight! If anybody wants to check it out and leave more thanks than I can give by myself, then please!


	32. Finale

Al tipped his head back and let the night air fill his lungs. It was staler than he’d have liked, heavy with the scent of candle wax, incense, and blood. It was choices that decided causality battles, and this time Al had chosen the crossroads himself. He’d made his own battlefield and set a proper stage for once. And what a stage it was.

Al still hadn’t changed out of his dinner attire. A pressed shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and clipped. Black slacks, burgundy vest, and a blood-red bow at his throat. It matched the stained bandage across his sleeve where Connor got a last word in and the once-white gloves on his hands. Even from the start, Al hadn’t been fool enough to leave his bloody fingerprints scattered around a church.

He sat on the altar, legs crossed at the knee and one foot swinging in idle circles. Connor’s body kneeled before him in a pool of blood, his head bowed and hands interlaced in his lap as rigor mortis set in. It was a shame, really. This one Al certainly would never meet again, but there was never any other way it could have gone.

And there was one last favor Al could give him, a reassurance that there were no hard feelings—none on Al’s side anyway, and Heaven was supposed to be free from wrath. Connor would forgive him, and Al marked his passage with a serenade of show tunes and radio hits. He’d never been one for hymns.

It was at least an hour before the door creaked open and the echoes of Al’s voice went silent. He took a deep breath, swallowed, and unclenched his fingers from the white cloth of the altar. They trembled as if reluctant to let go, as if they were searching for something solid to grab. Al couldn’t blame them. Tonight he had no hints from Alastor and only shadows of a plan. He had no weapons and no demons to contract with, but that didn’t matter now.

For the first time, he’d be working entirely on his own resources—making his own deals and winning his own battles, just as Alastor did.

Al’s hands stilled as he looked up and smiled for himself—always himself, and not the camera—and blinked stars from his eyes after the flash.

This was it. The stage was set, and Al could work with an unconventional spotlight. “Pleasure to meet you!” he said and hopped from the altar. “The name’s Alastor, now what can—?” The gun pointed at his chest gave him a second of pause but only to let out a laugh. “Haha! Oh, don’t pretend you’re going to shoot me! It’s not in my timeline, and I very much doubt it’s in yours or you wouldn’t have bothered with our little meeting here. I have so much more to offer you than my life!”

The man only moved the gun up to Al’s head. Al huffed and gave him a skeptical look but went silent and stopped only a few pews in.

“No more talking. No pleasantries.” The man’s voice was stiff, carefully dispassionate. “I got your message. You’ve had your fun, now you’re going to agree to my terms, and we’ll both walk away happy.”

Al waved a dismissive hand. “Let me guess. Souls for silence? I transfer my contracts, and you make sure nothing incriminating reaches the police. Believe me, I’m very familiar with this type of deal.” He held his arms out and took a step forward. “But what’s in it for me? Shoot me now, and I’m in Hell a bit early, but—“

“But that’s just it! You’re always so early. Always in a headlong rush to death, but I can prove that you’ll be better off if you wait.”

Now that was interesting—a first hint of emotion from this speaker. His words were tense and hasty, spat out to cut Al off, and he had to pause to take a deep breath. It would have been a perfect chance to run across him and put him off balance, but Al stayed silent. He needed more information—a better read—and here the man was offering him a rehearsed speech on a silver platter.

The speaker’s gun wavered as he locked eyes on a point somewhere above Al’s head. “We’ve all seen the Radio Demon in our afterlight—all of us who end up in Pentagram City and then some—but not everyone gets close enough to  _ really  _ see you. Most people don’t recognize you, but one day I did. That’s when I decided to introduce myself. I didn’t have a plan—wasn’t even sure if it was you— but maybe I’d get on your good side or learn a trick or two. But the moment I stood up every mirror in the place flashed.”

He paused for breath, and Al moved a step closer and to the side to lean against the back of a pew.

“My reflection was looking back at me, and he was different—powerful, confident. He told me to follow you and stay quiet. He showed me the Radio Demon of his world. Your rise gets delayed a while, but it’s even more meteoric than the original’s. In my world, you’ll strike fear in even the greatest of Hell’s lords. You’ll never fear reprisal or erasure. You don’t let me hold you back for long.” He paused to let out a chuckle, small and breathy. “That’s what’s in it for you. Power and safety in Hell and all the time in the human world that you could want. April fourteenth, is it? You’d miss so much. Swing, tap, the Golden Age of radio. . .”

Such a shame. Al let a touch of wistfulness cross his face, but he was barely paying attention to the words. He was too busy watching the stiffness in the man’s gestures and listening to his voice. It was thin and strained, the sound of a nervous man unused to controlling the conversation.

Al made a guess and threw out a simple question. “Is that something else your demon told you? Don’t give me a chance to talk?”

The man flinched, Al smiled and pushed off from his pew, and the gun was once again pointed at his face. “Now you know the deal,” the speaker said. “It’s mutual gain. Either you agree and we both profit, or you turn it down and we both lose. The only word you need to say is yes.”

“Or I could kill you right now.” Al said it lightly, a sarcastic suggestion. Al’s hands were empty, but the speaker forced his composure back into place anyway.

“You should know that if I don’t come home a letter will be mailed to the police. It won’t have tonight’s photo, but it’ll be damning enough.”

Al shrugged. He’d been expecting as much. “So I’m not dealing with a fool. Then you’re clever enough to know that deals with demons aren’t a simple take it or leave it. I can’t negotiate without talking, so will you hear my demands, or are we done here?”

The man hesitated then let out a sigh. “As long as they’re not—.”

“I walk away with everything—my future, my souls, and your sworn silence.” Anything short of a perfect victory would be a loss, and Alastor didn’t lose conversations. The man’s frown deepened, and Al widened his smile to match. “So you see, now we’re even. You know what I want. I know what you want. Now we find a compromise.”

Only it wasn’t even, not in the slightest. The speaker had put all his cards on the table from the start—what he wanted and what he had to offer—and he thought Al had done the same. The assumptions were written all over his face. Power and notoriety were the prize Al was playing for, and contracts were his only chips, but both were far off the mark.

'Don’t tell anyone what you want,' Alastor had said, and Al could see the wisdom of it clearer than ever. All he needed now was an opening, a subtle way to seize control and steer the conversation down his chosen path. He’d made a good start of it, too. The speaker’s composure had slipped again, and Al was well practiced at playing the nuisance.

“There’s no compromise if you won’t give anything up!”

Al gave a flippant shrug. “Isn’t there? You can’t think of a single thing I can offer you? This is all just simple haggling, and you’re already playing the merchant. I know what you’re selling, and you’ve named your price. I won’t pay it, so now it’s my turn to make a counteroffer.”

The man waved the gun, beckoning for Al to get on with it. “Then stop stalling and name it.”

Perfect. Al fought down the urge to smirk, folded his hands behind his back, and took a deep breath and a step forward.

“Thank you! It's a nice change to be civil about this sort of thing. You and I both know that one of our futures will be changing after tonight. No way around it, but at least it's not down to—oh, and put that gun away. You won't need it. At least it's not down to violence again.” Al aimed a fond look over his shoulder.

“Your offer. Name it.”

The speaker raised his gun one last time, and Al was close enough now to see the black of oblivion down its barrel. He was close enough to walk forward, touch a finger to its tip, and push it down.

“Oh have a bit of courtesy, would you? We both know that one way or another, you’ll be walking out of here sworn to secrecy. But me? I have options. Now, what  _ am _ I going to do with you?” The speaker didn’t move as Al walked past him and rested a hand on his shoulder. He had to be annoyed though. Al had seen hints of it on his face even before he’d reached out, and he took a few verbal steps back. ”Or more accurately, I  _ for _ you. I know you want souls, but you don’t strike me as a climber. What’s your real goal? Power, wealth, security?”

Or all of the above, plus a dash of the confidence he’d seen in the mirror. It was all he thought Alastor had and Al wanted. Classic projection. Al’s hand tightened on his shoulder.

“Do you honestly think you’d be better off earning them by yourself than with my help? And, heaven forbid, with my enmity?” He gave the man’s shoulder a last squeeze then walked on, waving a dismissive hand. Maybe the man saw, maybe not. Al’s eyes were closed, lost in the act. “Yes, yes, I’m sure there’s a nonaggression pact somewhere in that deal you’ve cooked up, but dear, I’m the Radio Demon. Deals are my currency. Tempt me to find a loophole, and I’ll do it just to spite you.”

It was the first time Al had heard the moniker, but he smiled and it settled on his shoulders like an old, familiar coat. It felt right to say, his nature summarized in two words, and every word after it came easier.

“There’s a reason your demon doesn’t want me to talk. It’s dangerous, but for whom? That’s the trouble with being a speaker. We cling to the future without so much as wondering if it wouldn't be better to change it.”

Finally Al turned around, and the speaker wasn’t looking. He was still staring dead ahead—not at the altar, not at Connor, only away from Al—and that wouldn’t do. Al reached for his shoulder again, and this time he pulled. The speaker spun, nearly tripped, and Al gripped his other shoulder for balance.

“No, no, don't ignore me! Why would you ever think that was a good idea? We're negotiating here. Ignorance won't help you in the slightest. Your demon can't put blinders on you, but he's gone and convinced you to put them on yourself!”

They were face to face now, looking each other in the eye, and Al’s narrowed as he tipped his head.

“But I’m not dealing with your demon. I’m dealing with you, and your best interests aren’t his. He'd have you trotting along all the way to his future, but is that your _ best _ future? Are  _ you _ happy to die on April fourteenth?”

Despite the tension in his shoulders, the man didn’t look away. “And what about you?” he asked.

A bit of initiative, huh? That deserved a reward. Al stepped back, closed his eyes, and let out a sigh. “Oh, it’s much too late for me. I fell into my demon’s trap decades ago. There’s no getting out now.”

The words were pessimistic, and Al’s eyes were tired when they opened, but that was the part he had to play. It was necessary—a mask of defeat to give the speaker a victory. It was the sacrifice Al needed to convince the speaker to give up his future because never would Al give up his.

Al could see it clearly, the future the speaker offered him. He’d have power at his fingertips—immense and irresistible—and it’d be nothing but overcompensation. He’d lash out blindly, unafraid of consequences, desperate to fill the void of knowing he’d made the only true mistake of his life. He’d throw himself into his job and spend every evening out on the town. He’d see every show and learn every dance, make any deal he could, come home ready to collapse, and fall into bed without turning on the light. Why bother when the Alastor in the mirror wouldn’t be the one he’d grown up with and talked to and danced with? He’d never have the chance to relive those moments from the other side.

Al hadn’t even had to lie. He truly had fallen into Alastor’s trap right from the start. He almost laughed at the thought.

Damn Alastor and his layers deep plans. Damn him for giving Al reason to imagine forsaking him when he’d learned the truth about the letters. Al knew exactly how bitter that thought was now, and he knew what it meant to make someone mistrust their demon.

It was easy to put on a small, benevolent smile. Al had been doing it all his life. It was easy to be charming, just a middle ground between politeness and the intense, energetic sort of focus that put a spotlight on its target. In those moments the world narrowed to actor and audience even as the boundary of the stage disappeared. Which was which? It didn’t matter, only that both put on a show and neither disappointed.

Al’s eyes weren’t red yet, but he opened them wide anyway, and the effect was hypnotic.

“But it’s not too late for you. How about it? Let’s trade places. I’ll follow my path, and  _ you _ choose a better one. You keep my secret, live on as a human, see this Golden Age of radio through for me, and tell me all about it when you get down there. And when you do, I’ll grant you whatever you want. Power, wealth, safety—within reason of course. After all, we’re both reasonable people here. Let’s make it a deal.”

Al held out his hand, but it wasn’t enough. Not yet.

“You expect me to  _ shake _ on that? Are you mad?”

Al laughed, a bright, cheery sound that echoed from the rafters. “Maybe. But I’m also a speaker. We’re just a step away from Hell, the two of us, and we understand the sanctity of a deal. But just in case you don’t—or you think  _ I _ don’t—I’ve brought a contingency.”

Al hummed a jaunty tune as he strolled back to the altar, not letting his presence waver for a moment. He ruffled Connor’s hair before he grabbed what he’d come for and strode back to the speaker. No gun pointing this time. Al held the flashlight in his left hand and held his right out to shake.

“It’s afterlight,” he said. “You can see for yourself and haggle until we find a future that works for you.”

The man flinched back as if personally attacked. “That’s not the point! You’re not the one who sets the terms.” He leveled a shaky glare that faltered as Al didn’t react but to blink.

“Oh, you poor dear. Of course I’m not, but neither are you! That’s why it’s a handshake! It’s you and me together—you and me and not our demons—making the best choices for  _ us. _ Now tell me, if you’re not going to shake, why not? You want a better life? I can arrange that. I’ll be dead soon anyway. A better afterlife? Take my hand, and it’ll be yours.”

The speaker still hesitated, and for a moment Al let the spotlight fade. The air went calm and dark—all hidden rooms and secret alcoves—and he put on an understanding, inviting look.

“It’s terrifying, isn’t it? Taking a deal when you can’t see the trick? Well there isn’t one, and if you’re scared of this—scared of a deal you came into with enough blackmail material to get me killed multiple times over—imagine going into one on even footing. Or at a disadvantage. That’s the future your demon has in store for you because no matter how much he hates it or how much you’ll hate it, he needs his past.

“But I can do it. I’m offering you a chance to leave it all to me. Let me handle the task of carving out a place in Hell. You just live on as a human and reap the rewards of getting one over on me.”

The man reached out, then paused.

“I can’t trust you,” he said, and Al shook his head.

“Of course not. You’ve only just met me, but I’ll give you a word of advice. Trust doesn’t matter when a deal is binding. I’ll fulfill my end no matter what you think of me. The real killer—the real way you’ll make yourself miserable—is going into a deal thinking you know what you want and getting it wrong.” Al kept his empty right hand extended and held out the afterlight in his left.

“Now, which do you choose?” Al said, and the rest was inevitable.

The speaker only hesitated for a moment before he shook hands. Al offered him the afterlight anyway and guided him over to the transept. A mirror hung there, and the speaker stared for a few seconds before frowning. “He’s not— I’m not looking back anymore.”

Al mirrored Alastor’s grin effortlessly and clapped a hand on the man’s back.

“That’s good! That means you’re free!”


	33. Closure

By the time Al got home, there was nothing left to say. No, “You did it,” or, “I’m proud of you,” but Al hadn’t expected any. He grabbed the wine from his table as he passed, then went to join Alastor in a silent toast. Neither of them could sign with a glass in one hand and a bottle in the other, and Al was halfway through the latter before Alastor set his down.

“Congratulations,” Alastor signed, and Al didn’t know what it was for. The night’s victory, the life he’d lived, or the death he’d earned. His only reply was to refill his glass and raise it, and Alastor chuckled and did the same.

“The Radio Demon, huh?” Al signed some minutes later. “Don’t tell me you came up with it. Bit on the nose, don’t you think?”

Alastor laughed, and not for the first time Al wished he could hear it. “It’s not the most creative name, is it? But it’s what stuck, and I can work with what I’m given.”

Maybe it was the alcohol at work, but Alastor leaned back in his chair and continued to let out occasional chuckles. Al’s head tilted as he watched. He’d get the chance soon, he realized. He’d get to hear it for himself, but it wouldn’t be the same.

* * *

The police didn’t have a warrant this time, only questions. They weren’t his friends, so Al lied without a second thought.

“Sergeant Williams mentioned plans to visit you for dinner. Around what time was that?”

“Seven, but he never showed up. He’s— Connor’s okay, right?”

“We’ll answer any questions you have in a minute. Your neighbors saw you drive off alone at around nine o’clock. Where were you going?”

“Well, when Connor didn’t come, I thought he might be feeling worse. Or maybe he forgot. I drove to his house, but he wasn’t there. Where is he?”

The police weren’t Al’s friends, but they did know him. Denial, they called it when Al’s smile didn’t so much as falter at the news. A curse, they called it when they were out of earshot, not knowing that Al had practice reading lips. It was a tragedy, but he’d brought it on himself with those rituals of his. Everyone around him was destined to die.

* * *

Al visited his mother twice the month before he died. The first was to ask for a handful of recipes he hadn’t yet managed to memorize. The second was to enjoy a simple evening in her company, even if she kept glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.

Al knew the difference, and his mother had sensed it immediately. There was certainty in his movements and an odd gravity to his smile. It was light enough to never be a strain and weighty enough that even the thought of it leaving his face was unimaginable. It was a permanent fixture and something entirely his own.

That evening was pure comfort food—beignets and jambalaya—and as they settled in for dinner, so settled the acceptance she’d been putting off. Alastor would always be her little boy, no matter where he was, but he was undeniably his own man.

* * *

Al met his father one afternoon at a café. Al took a seat next to him at the counter, and the two drank their coffee in silence.

“I heard you on the radio,” he said eventually. “Keep up the good work, son.” He didn’t so much as look up from his newspaper, and Al rolled his eyes with a fond smile. Some things never changed.

* * *

“And this, ladies and gentlemen, is when G. D. Blake mysteriously vanished. His publisher has confirmed that he was writing under a pen name. It’s likely he simply abandoned his work, but still rumors fly. After all, eleven years ago was when our local serial killer got his start. Who’s to say he wasn’t inspired. . .”

That was another change. In the last few weeks, sinister notes had slipped far more easily into Al’s voice. It was effortless and perfectly suited to narrating a late-night murder mystery. He didn’t want to think what the station would do without him.

“But don’t worry, dear listeners! We wouldn’t leave you hanging! Just before his untimely disappearance, Blake managed to submit his last manuscript! The broadcast continues at our usual time next week!

“Have a good night and a happy Easter, and don’t forget to tune in the day after for the thrilling conclusion! I repeat: next Monday, April seventeenth! Don’t miss it!”

Al heard the tone that meant the broadcast was over and leaned back in his chair. It wasn’t quite what he’d promised Gloria all those years ago. He wouldn’t read her story on-air, not all the way, but he’d do her one better. He’d give the story a life of its own. He’d make it notorious—a curse that killed any who dared tell it—and spread it farther than any one voice could. Even his own.

* * *

Alastor had once said to step outside and paint the blue and green over with red. Then Al would know what it was like to be in Hell. The sun was doing half the job now, dyeing the sky violet, the clouds red, and the bayou black with silhouettes.

The fire did the rest. A dark cloud poured up from behind Al’s house, and shades of yellow and orange flared and glinted off an ornate gold frame. Al’s shed was burning with all of his evidence and all but one of his mirrors inside. The last was leaned against the wall.

“You remember what to do?” Alastor signed.

“Of course,” Al signed back, then his lips curled down a fraction as the image in the mirror blurred. His flashlight lay in the grass at his feet, propped up to bathe him in afterlight, and he nudged it to get a better angle. “It’s only a simple hunting trip with a new friend from the bar. What could go wrong?” Al paused before returning the question. “But what about you? What’s next on your list?”

“Plenty,” Alastor answered. “I have a few projects I’ve been putting off until I knew you’d made it through.”

“Any hints?”

Alastor smiled and shook his head. “None. No more hints. From now on you make your own future.”

“Except the parts where I’m stuck guiding myself to it,” Al signed, and they shared a look of mutual understanding.

“Don’t knock it just yet. You’re a good kid. It’s been a blast.”

The words were entirely unnecessary—understood without having to be said—and Al hadn’t expected to see them. His vision blurred, and Al waved smoke from his eyes before finding a reply.

“Eleven years, though. It’s a long time to wait.”

“It’ll pass before you know it.” Alastor’s smile was reassuring, and Al couldn’t count all the reasons why. “There’ll be plenty to keep you entertained. It’s a whole new world down here. When your deals pay off, you’ll have all you need to make a name for yourself in the most dramatic ways you can imagine. Isn’t that right, Alastor?”

Alastor swept his arm forward and lowered his head in a bow, and Alastor did the same. At the bottom of the arc he grabbed his flashlight, and when they looked up their eyes were shining in the firelight.

"Goodbye," Alastor signed and threw the afterlight in the fire.


	34. Epilogue: Destination

_ Dogs. He didn’t tell me about the dogs. _

Alastor thought the words with more than a hint of venom as he picked himself up and brushed dirt from his clothes. Was that part of his plan too? Frustration wasn’t the worst emotion to wake up with. Frustration was a motivator, not like—Alastor shook his head and looked around.

Alastor hadn’t spoken much about his death, but what little he’d said matched up with what he saw now. He’d come to in a vacant corner lot between a run-down apartment building and a pawn shop, dressed in the plain gray clothes of a newly arrived sinner. They hung off him like prison garb, and he sneered and moved getting a new outfit toward the top of his to-do list.

Not that it was much of a list. Alastor’s advice had already run out. This was his life alone now, and Alastor looked around for anything that might catch his eye.

A few demons were passing by on the sidewalk. Alastor paid them as much mind as they did him, barely more than a fleeting glance. More interestingly, the ground was farther away than before. Alastor was tall in a way that never came across in afterlight, at least a head taller than he’d been in life, but all the rest was familiar. He ran his tongue along pointed teeth and flexed his hands, savoring the snick of sharp claws. Their tips pressed against the skin of his palms, and drops of blood welled up around them.

But the cuts didn’t seal immediately, and that was curious. The Alastor he’d known would have healed them in seconds. This was what it meant to be powerless in Hell, he realized as he absently licked the blood from his palms.

He froze the moment his tongue touched his hand. Oh, that was a taste. Demon blood, huh? That was a taste he could get used to.

A distant noise shook him from his reverie—the deep, resonant tone of a clock tower striking once, twice, three times. It went on until the twelfth strike, and Alastor’s eyes—both physical and suddenly present metaphorical ones—went wide as it echoed across senses he’d never known before. The air trembled with the sound, but no, not the air but something in it. A faint energy swirled through it like a fog, and if that was fog then what he could feel under his skin was nothing short of a river.

There was more on top of it—other senses he’d need to explore, flickers in his awareness he didn’t know how to process—but for the moment a few stood out clearly. In the distance, there were glimpses of power, but not the same sort as the magic around him. They were person-shaped—soul-shaped—and he knew without thinking that from here on those souls were his.

Alastor raised his hand in the air, raised his cane instead, and blinked in surprise. It had appeared without intent or notice and settled in his hand like it belonged there. However it had gotten there, it clashed horribly with his sleeve, and that gave him pause. If he was to be making introductions, he might as well look the part.

He closed his eyes for focus, but it wasn’t needed. The image was utterly familiar, and it was only a matter of guiding his magic into the right shape. He snapped his fingers and felt his clothes pull tighter around him and split into layers. Dull gray bled into pink then dark red, and the corner of Alastor’s vision went crimson. The monocle didn’t work, but he hadn’t expected it to. It was as much illusion as the rest, but he bumped getting new clothes a few ticks down his list anyway.

Alastor raised his hand again, and this time the snap left him oddly drained. It wasn’t physical or mental but some other feeling he cataloged for future study before turning to his new audience. Just over a dozen demons were looking around in confusion—the closest of those he’d tried to summon—but it wasn’t long before their eyes found him too.

Alastor would have known even if he hadn’t been looking them over. Every gaze that settled on him was a faint spark in his awareness, a feeling of being watched. Of having an audience. He’d gathered a few onlookers from the passerby too, Alastor noted as he raised his hands for attention. The cuts were long since healed.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he started, and it was only by sheer force of habit that he got the rest out. “It’s a pleasure to make your reacquaintance! You’ve all known this day was coming, and let me tell you, we’ll be making some real changes around here.”

He paused and closed his eyes, seemingly for effect. In truth, it was to gather himself and suppress his shock. He could feel his heart beating fast and heavy from it. He’d wanted to hear Alastor almost since the day he’d seen him, and now he could. His voice suited the demon—suited him—more perfectly than he’d ever imagined. It held all the bandpass distortion and layered static of a radio broadcast, as if no matter where he might go or what he might do, he’d always be ready to put on a show.

And that explained the other sense that’d been nagging at the back of his mind. It was almost silent save for white noise and a few frequencies quietly playing some obnoxious drivel, and that was something he’d have to change immediately.

Alastor’s eyes flared wide as he held his cane to his mouth. He caught that sense, tuned it like a radio dial, and stared into the distance as he held onto as many frequencies as he could manage.

“Good evening friends, acquaintances, and all you denizens of Hell who haven’t yet had the pleasure! My name is Alastor, here with a special announcement! It’s come to my attention that my new home is in dire need of a proper broadcasting station, so please. Allow me.”

The broadcast flipped off, but he could still feel it spreading miles away, bouncing between sky and ground on the airwaves and raising flickers of awareness as it went. Alastor let the echoes settle before giving his cane a twirl and turning back to his audience. He took a step forward and held his arms out, letting his crowd know he was speaking to them alone.

“Now then, I think this right here is the perfect place to open a studio! Let’s get started, shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it folks! It's been a ride!
> 
> My one regret in all this is that I ended up just shy of a clean 50k. They say a picture's worth a thousand words though, so [here you go!](https://satelesque.tumblr.com/post/615942528358858752/a-small-companion-piece-to-my-fic-afterlight-now) I get my 50k, you get art, and Al gets a halo!
> 
> Seriously though! Thanks to everyone who read, gave kudos, or commented! Now that it's over, if you have any questions or comments or advice, please feel free to leave a comment! Liked the story? Awesome! Noticed a spelling error? Oops, I'll get right on that! Want to argue characterization? Sounds fun! I'm still pretty new to this whole posting thing, so I'll take anything I can get.
> 
> And to anyone who doesn't comment, I hope you enjoyed the story, and I'm glad you stuck around to the end! Have a good day!


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